Star Wars: Requiem
by Sierra.BN312
Summary: The Reclaimer Saga begins in the galaxy far, far away. Shipwrecked on a mysterious world, the Master Chief returns alongside the Jedi of the Republic, against new enemies, deadly technology and an ancient evil bent on vengeance and annihilation. Both galaxies will never be the same afterwards... ON PERMEANENT HIATUS
1. Prologue

Prologue -

* * *

Hundreds of thousands of years before the Human-Covenant War, and the Clone Wars; there once was a great technological civilization the existed in the Milky Way. The Forerunners. Once guardians of all that existed, a race that could complete dominate the current inhabitants of the Milky Way and Andromeda, but 100,000 years ago...they vanished mysteriously into the night without a word.

In the year 2552, after the fall of the UNSC controlled planet Reach, the fleeing crew of the Pillar of Autumn discovered the answer to this question: Halo. A weapon of vast unimaginable power, it was designed to be the last resort against the Flood. An all-consuming parasite that knew no bounds and almost consumed the galaxy, this event sparked the turning point for humanity as it emerged the victor of the war, but not without cost.

Humanity's champion known as the Master Chief was labeled Missing In Action after the end of the war on the Ark, but little did they know that he would return, not only to save the Milky Way but soon Andromeda.

Meanwhile in the galaxy far, far away, it had been thrown into chaos by the eruption of the Clone Wars, the Republic on one side fighting for democracy and freedom with the Jedi leading their clone armies into battle, and the Separatists lead by Count Dooku, a Sith Lord known as Darth Tyranus, misleading the former Republic systems against so called 'corruption' and 'inequality', which were only partially true.

Both sides had been going at one another for at least a year now, and they have taken heavy losses. Any attempt to stop the fighting with peace talks are swiftly crushed, and other 'silenced' branding many traitors to their own respective governments, but little did they know that their galaxy would forever change in a matter of days.

* * *

-December 11th, 2552; Installation O4B, Alpha Halo's Replacement Ring-

* * *

"Gun it, Chief! Jump! Floor it! Right into the hangar

The Master Chief and the Arbiter had been driving back towards the UNSC frigate _Forward Unto Dawn_ , avoiding an onslaught of Flood and Sentinels that had been trying to kill them in their escape of the now active Installation 04B over the Ark. 343 Guilty Spark had stated that a premature firing of the Installation would result in not only destroying the Halo, but quite possibly also destroying the Ark as well.

The Warthog makes the massive gap between the platforms into the _Dawn_ 's hangar bay but it doesn't land well, tumbling and rolling as it crashes into the frigate's hangar. The Master Chief and the Arbiter recover, then the _Dawn_ shifts. A Scorpion tank begins to slide towards the Arbiter, who takes cover behind a pile of crates, with the tank plowing into it. The Chief leaps over the Warthog and hesitates, seeing the Arbiter digging himself out of the crates. The Chief nods at him, and the Arbiter nods back, both in knowing what to do. The Arbiter rushes to the bridge, while the Chief runs to a control terminal and plugs Cortana in to take control of the frigate.

Cortana then appeared with her glowing, light blue, holographic form on the panel.

"Hang on!" the A.I. shouted.

Cortana ignited the thrusters at full burn and launched the Dawn at full speed away from the exploding Halo. The Chief grabbed onto the terminal, hanging on for life as the _Dawn_ left Halo's atmosphere. As the Spartan tried to stay anchored, the Warthog flew out, which struck John on its way through the open hanger doors and out into empty space. The Chief flew off the panel, and then glided down the floor towards the doors, with the self-destructing Halo looming beneath. The Chief punched his fist hard into the floor to get a grip, halting near the back end of the hangar. Cortana reached out her arm towards him, afraid to lose him. Her closest friend.

"Chief!" Cortana yelled with worry in her voice.

The Scorpion flew out towards the Spartan. Seeing the tank looming towards him, Chief ducked his head just in time as the tank flew over him, narrowly missing the Chief. The Scorpion smashed the floor behind the Chief and fell back towards Halo. John began to climb back up to Cortana. After a few seconds passed, the Master Chief finally made it to the holotank that contained the A.I he went through the Flood infected _High Charity_.

Meanwhile, the Arbiter made it to the bridge and sat down at the controls.

Chief braced himself behind the panel. The Spartan reached his hand to the panel to recover Cortana's chip to plug her back into his helmet. The Spartan felt the cold sensation go through his body as his A.I. companion was once again in his helmet.

"If we don't make it..." Cortana said sounding as if she was accepting death.

"We'll make it." The luckiest Spartan replied in confidence.

"It's been an honor serving with you, John."

The Master Chief finally rested his head back, exhausted from the events that occurred on Earth, the Ark, _High Charity_ , and Installation 04B. The Halo Installation suddenly exploded, which engulfed the hangar in a binding white light. Soon, the only thing they saw was a blinding bright light before they blacked out.

* * *

-March 3, 2553; Earth, outside the portal to the Ark in the ruined industrial city of Voi-

* * *

There stood, on what is now UNSC's most important and respected memorial, Lord Hood, the Arbiter, and seven Marines armed with Battle Rifles.

Lord Hood now started one of mankind's greatest speeches. He took off his white military hat to pay respect for those who fallen and have made a huge contribute to the war.

"For us the stormed has passed. The war is over.'' Lord Hood bowed his head to show his endearment, "But let us never forget those who journeyed into the howling dark and did not return. For their decision required courage beyond measure…sacrifice, and unshakable conviction that their fight, our fight, was elsewhere."

The Arbiter watched the memorial, the Elite stood solemnly with the Marines. He listened to the UNSC's leader say his speech for the human's heroes that died in action to the onslaught of the Covenant and the horror of the Flood, so humanity can live on.

"As we start to rebuild, this hillside will remain barren, a memorial to heroes fallen. They ennobled all of us, and they shall not be forgotten."

Admiral Hood placed his hat back on, and saluted.

Sgt. Stacker issued orders to the marines, "Present arms!"

Seven Marines raised their Battle Rifles with the pride and each fire a single burst of three shots: a 3-volley salute.

Later, Hood and the Arbiter stood alone at the Memorial, which appeared to be a Pelican wing, decorated with pictures of the fallen, including Captain Keyes, Sgt. Johnson and so many other soldiers that fought bravely for humanity.

"I remember how this war started. What your kind did to mine. I can't forgive you. But..."

Hood held out his hand to the Thel Vadam, the Arbiter.

"You have my thanks. For standing by him to the end." Lord said as he made a reference to the one who won them the war.

The Arbiter slowly shook Admiral Hood's hand with his own four fingered hand. After letting go, Hood turned to the memorial once more to look at a sad site that he thought he would never think they would ever see or really anyone would ever see, the Arbiter shared Lord Hood's sad gaze.

"Hard to believe he's dead." The UNSC leader said with sadness, still not wanting to believe the most famous Spartan, that won the war for the human race, is with other Spartans that are M.I.A.

The Elite in black ancestral armor looked away towards the Assault Carrier, Shadow of Intent, which hovered silently in the sky of Earth.

"Were it so easy." The Arbiter finally spoke to Lord Hood. A phrase he said to Master Chief when he saw him on Earth, when the Spartan aimed a Magnum at his throat.

Thel Vadam left the Memorial. His Separatist Phantom headed back to the _Shadow of Intent_ , which still hovered in about the same position the Portal to the Ark once was. The Arbiter meet Shipmaster Rtas 'Vadum on the bridge. The white armored Elite with some missing mandibles looked at a holographic image of a planet. He saw the Arbiter approach him, and turned off the hologram of Earth.

"Things look different, without the Prophets' lies clouding my vision. I would like to see our own world… to know that it is safe." Rtas 'Vadum said as if he is looking at his home world for the first time.

"Fear not. For we have made it so." The Arbiter spoke with pride and confidence.

The Arbiter clenched his fist to his chest, as a sign of honor.

"By your word, Arbiter." Supreme Commander, Rtas 'Vadum spoke with respect as he repeated the gesture the Thel Vadam made.

The Arbiter took a seat on the command chair, as he assumed command of the _Shadow of Intent_. The silver armored Elite spun on his chair.

"Take us home." Thel 'Vadam commanded as he and every other Elite on the Assault Carrier, was eager to see their home planet, Sanghelios safe and sound.

The _Shadow of Intent_ left Earth, to rejoin the remains of the Covenant Separatist fleet in space.

* * *

-Elsewhere in the Universe-

* * *

A feminine voice is speaking to a floating man in dark green armor.

"Chief? Chief? Can you hear me?"

The Master Chief, alive and awake, floated in zero gravity in a dark debris-filled hallway on board the _Dawn_.

"I thought I'd lost you, too." Cortana breathed a sigh of relief.

Chief turned on his helmet's lights and looked at a hole that was behind him in the hallway. He drifted to his floating Assault Rifle, and holstered it on the magnetic plates on his back. The Chief then began to drift towards hole at the end of the hallway.

"What happened?" The Spartan asked Cortana.

For once Cortana said three words that many people that wouldn't believe she would say.

"I'm not sure. When Halo fired, it shook itself to pieces. Did a number on the Ark. The Portal couldn't sustain itself. We made it through just as it collapsed."

The Chief reached the end of the hallway, which opened up into the vast empty space. The _Forward Unto Dawn_ looked as if it was cut half perfectly, it floated in a cloud of debris, with ends of it still literally red hot from the Slipspace cut.

"Well...some of us made it." Cortana then spoke with a little disappointment as she referred to the Arbiter who was nowhere to be found.

The _Dawn's_ remaining half continued to drift aimlessly in unknown space. The Chief decided to glide further inside the ship, finding a row of cryotubes, complete with a holotank to plug Cortana into.

"But you did it. Truth and the Covenant, the Flood..." The Chief plugged Cortana's data chip into the holotank and she appeared on the holotank with her glowing blue form. "It's finished."

The Master Chief turned off the flashlight on his helmet. The Chief placed his Assault Rifle in one of the rackets on the wall, so he could grab it incase anything happens.

"I'll drop a beacon. But it'll be a while before anyone finds us." Cortana said sadly.

The man climbed into the cryotube that was in-front of Cortana's holotank and next to the rack where he placed his Assault Rifle.

"Years, even." Which disheartened John since Cortana can only be active for seven years before she thought herself to death. The Master Chief began to think what he would do without Cortana in his life, but his thoughts were quickly interrupted, as the cryotube door began to close.

"I'll miss you." The A.I.'s words were filled with emotion that you would never thought a computer would ever have; sadness and care.

"Wake me when you need me." Master Chief spoke his final words to his last living friend on the half of the _Dawn_.

Cortana smiled and nodded her holographic head to John. The cryotube closed and sealed itself, which froze the Master Chief. Finally, the rest that Master Chief needed since he first encountered the Halos.

Cortana dropped the _Dawn's_ beacon, hoping the message will get found so she and Master Chief could one day be saved. Little did they know that no longer were they in the Milky Way, but had been lead elsewhere in the universe, by a Forerunner AI seeking repentance after its destruction.

* * *

-One Year Later, 2553; Covenant Super Carrier _Light of Righteous Faith_ -

* * *

Jul 'Mdama could not tolerate a defeat from humanity. They had taken so much from him as he was not only robbed of the main source of his faith but had been revealed to be a farce, the Prophets had lied to him and his race, but this did not deter him from trying to lead his people into the light and become Gods as the Forerunners once were, and now he no longer had his wife...killed, no murdered by the Humans...and they would pay dearly for these offensives, and after learning from the Huragok's about one who could lead them into glory, he knew what he had to do.

He had assembled a massive fleet of old Covenant technology and created the Covenant Storm. A group that would continue to seek Godhood as in the old days, but through any means, and the denying of the Halo's the false Sacred Rings, the weapons made for killing them, to stop the Parasite. He had sent his lieutenants out to continue absorbing more and more former Covenant Loyalists to bolster his army and seek out the One.

The Huragok spoke of a special and ancient device that led to a new galaxy, where their last remaining God slept.

And find it he did, he had to be secretive, he had no idea if there were any inhabitants that could potentially ruin everything, so he kept to the very edge of the galaxy and waited for his Lieutenants to return with their forces.

And after two months of searching, they found it. A Warrior Elite by the name of Parg 'Vol walked towards Jul and spoke to him. "We have finally found it. Requiem. It is where you said it would be Supreme Commander 'Mdama."

Jul turned back to Parg and dismissed his statement, "No my loyal friend. It is where the Gods promised us where it would be." Jul turns back to see that Requiem is completely closed off on the outside, its metallic shell encasing the planet for protection from the effect of the Halo array. "Have our fleets look for a way inside the planet, and let no one but us near it. Requiem's treasure shall be ours to release and bring glory to our people once again." Jul turned to the crew in the bridge, and raised his hands to rally them further to his...their new cause, "We shall rise! And the Human race, shall fall!"

The crew from around the ship began to cheer in agreement, and they praised their new leader for continuing the work of the former Covenant Empire. As the cheers kept coming, a Grunt on comms discovered something, "Shipmaster! Shipmaster 'Mdama! We have an intruder in our orbital space!"

"What?"

Jul walked over to the viewing screen where the Grunt as situated. He saw that a rather small ship had made it's way on the far side of the planet, he thought for a moment about just shooting it down, but something else came to mind instead. "Have a few Phantoms intercept that ship and bring it and the occupants intact. I want to know what exactly we will be dealing with in this Galaxy."

* * *

-The Salvage/Merchant Ship-

* * *

Two men, one Human and the other a Togruta had decided to try and make a trip out into Wild Space. As recently business had been slow and the two decided to take a gamble to see if they could find anything of value. They head stories of some ships making similar ventures, some coming back with something such as new planet locations and their minerals, they came back with nothing to show for the venture, or never returning at all.

"Whoa…are you seeing this?" The Human said.

"I am seeing, but still having trouble believing…I mean a whole planet made out of metal, but there's now where to set down or even get inside, who made this thing?" The Togruta was running a scan of the planet in the hopes of identifying the maker, but nothing came up at all.

"I don't know, but we scored big this time! Oooooh boy, we are gonna make it big with this thing!" They came close to calling the venture off after nearly depleting their ship of almost all their food and drinks, and coming close to the very edge of the Galaxy, they finally discovered something never seen before. Granted Coruscant was one thing, but this was something else entirely. "Ok, so what're our coordinates? We gotta head back him soon, we…" He stopped to turn back as he saw his Togruta parter just stare at the computers in shock. "Uh, hey, what's the problem? I mean it's not like…" He too soon looked over towards the computers and saw what he saw…a massive fleet of unknown ships that made the Trade Federations war ships look like mere child toys.

"Um, I think we should probably get the hell out of here."

"Yeah, I'm with you on that buddy." The Togruta started to punch up their return trip home in a rush so they wouldn't get shot out of space. But they were cut off as several strange ships came from behind and in front of them, and they were surrounded by the ships with what appeared to be their guns below them pointed right at their ship. They were essentially fucked…

* * *

-The Hangar Bay-

* * *

Several Storm Covenant soldiers composed of Grunts, Jackals, Elites, and even Brutes were called down to the hangar bay to ensure that the unknown ship would be met with a swift and decisive action, should they try anything. The ship was forcibly brought in by the Phantoms, and it sat down, however, rather than allowing the occupants to exit the craft the Elites took plasma torches to what was assume the door and blown open, and they forced their way into the ship, only to find some new horned species, and…a Human.

The next few hours where absolute hell for the two men, especially the Human. They were taken to the prison block, and were beaten very badly, but not enough to to kill them, no, they still had a use for the time being…but it would be very short.

Jul learned that apparently Humanity in this Galaxy was very widespread and that there where many more species than back in their home Galaxy. How they could tolerate them was anyone's guess. Such a digesting species that was as bad as the Flood parasite. Jul ordered them to be imprisoned for further interrogation.

Jul went back to the bridge as Parg 'Vhol walked alongside him giving the bad news about Requiem, "Supreme Commander, I have grave news…we cannot find a way inside to Requiem."

This did not truly bother Jul as it should have, he was patient, and he could wait. But some of the other members of the Storm were not so. "I see, bring the human to a Phantom. And outfit him with a Ranger suit of sorts."

"Supreme Commander? I don't understand…"

"The Forerunners left many of their treasures to the many species, but it seemed that they liked Humanity too much and left it mostly to them. A shame that they were blinded by whatever reason not to leave it to us, the true Reclaimers of their legacy." Jul knew that Humanity were able to use Forerunner technology, more so than any other race in their Galaxy.

"I see then, is there, anything else?"

"I will call a meeting of myself along with you and the other Lieutenants of the Storm Covenant. No go, and outfit the Human, and kill the other creature. We no longer have a use for him since we have stripped their ship down to the barest parts and we have information on the Galaxy."

"By your word, Supreme Commander 'Mdama." Parg placed his fist over where his heart was and gave a salute to his superior, and founder of the Storm Covenant.

Jul was back in thought in the past few months since gathering the Storm. He had escaped captivity of the Humans through a Forerunner gateway and found himself on a planet where many Covenant Empire members were completely unaware of the end of the war, and the Great Schism. This worked to his advantage as he rallied the members to his new cause and created the Storm, he no longer believed that the Forerunners were Gods, as he believed that they were flawed beings, just like them, and finish faith was no longer what it once was. But that did not mean he could not 'play the prophet' to these people. He told them the truth behind the Great Journey and how the Prophets, the San 'Shyuam were false leaders, and would have brought death to the Galaxy.

They came across an old ship yard containing Huragok, and they fired it up. Jul originally commanded the Assault Carrier _Song of Retribution_ , but he traded it for the Super Carrier that was spat out by the shipyard as it was far more powerful than any Human ship that they had manufactured. He recalled how they destroyed the _Long Night of Solace_ over the human wold named Reach, that Thel 'Vadam had conquered in the old days, and would ensure that no such plan could be used again against him. He acquired many more troops from the Servants of Abiding Truth on Sanghelios that were at war with the Arbiter, and he was surprised that many of the Brutes, who wished to join Storm, despite the Great Schism.

He captured a Human science vessel and used some of the research conducted there to enhance the soldiers and they proved to be made superior to the regular soldiers used by Thel, and Chieftain of the Brutes Lydeaus. While they still could not hold to the 'Greater' Demons, the Spartan-II's, they certainly proved to be a match for the 'Lesser' Demons, the Spartan-IV's and created a powerhouse under his leadership. They continued to raid enemy ships and colonies to find where the Forerunner portal to Requiem was located and killed any and all who stood in their way.

* * *

-The Phantom-

* * *

The Human had been outfitted with a breathing mask with an atmosphere tank strapped to his back along with a vest filled with Plasma Grenades. "P-please! What do you want from me?! I'll g-give you anything, just don't kill me!"

A Ranger Elite shoved the barrel of his Carbine to his forehead, in an attempt to to shut him up, "Quit you pathetic whimpering. You're like a Grunt fresh of the teat…"

"Hey!" The pilot of the Phantom shouted back at the insult, he was no Human…

"We shall see if you can open the world to us." The Ranger turned the Human out towards Requiem and had the Carbine pointed back to his head with his face the opposite way, "Now, open the world."

"Heeeeelllpppp! Please! Please open! I don't wanna die! Opeeennnnn!" Tears of fear began to drop down his face, he was afraid that if he didn't do something, then they would kill him.

But nothing happened on the surface, meanwhile in the bridge, Jul was actually surprised but this. Requiem was not opening to anyone it seemed. Not even to the Humans of this Galaxy, so he made his deadly decree, "Kill the Human and his cohort. They no longer have any use."

And so they were killed and the Phantom returned back to the hangar bay. Jul punched up the comms across the fleet in the bridge, and gave his orders. "My fellow brothers of the Storm, this is your Supreme Commander, Jul 'Mdama. I know many of you eagerly await to set foot inside where the Gods once dwelled, but it seems that we must wait, until it believes that we are ready. So I ask of you, all of you. To ensure your patience, your will, and that your faith endure until that day comes, for we shall see what paradise awaits us inside, and the destruction of the Human race will then be nigh!" The crews of the fleet began to cheer in agreement and acceptance of their leader's words.

Jul knew that it would take time to enter Requiem, for how long? Who could say…but if the Humans of this Galaxy could not open, then the Humans of his him Galaxy would be the ones to open it, and he need not lift a finger to bring them here, their own curiosity would do it, given with what they had built: the _Infinity_. He had fought with the ship and it's crew over Sangehlios once…and it truly was a ship made and bred for war. It would come and he would be prepared for them, as well as those from this Galaxy, the database on board the merchant ship had proven a little useful for use against them. He had several agricultural ships like the once great _Infinite Succor_ , and they would provide all the sustenance they would need for the wait.

And now, they wait…

* * *

-22 Battle Before Yavin; Jedi Temple on Coruscant-

* * *

The Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, Mace Windu, and Grand Master Yoda were conversing over the fact that Count Dooku, a former Jedi Master and friend of theirs had joined the dark side, the Sith and became in league with this Darth Sidious. Now they had a Clone Army to command in the days to come; Obi-Wan was certain that with this battle, the war had been put down before it even began, little did they know that this not the case, "I have to admit, that without the clones it would not have been a victory."

"Victory?" Yoda spoke in disbelief that his fellow was so easily convinced that they had won fully, now with both Mace and Obi-Wan drawn to the Grand Master and his following words. "Victory, you say. Master Obi-Wan…" Yoda shook his head in knowing that he was being naïve, "…not victory. The shroud of the dark side has fallen. Begun, the Clone War has."

Battalions of Clone troopers began to board their war ships alongside AT-TE tanks, Republic gunships and dropships. They would all be shipping out to the front lines to bring the Galaxy back together after having it split in two after a thousand years.

However, as the years would go by, and the war would continue to go and become less and less popular with both the Republic and Separatists, they were all blissfully unaware of the growing Storm Covenant fleets growing and amassing for Requiem to awaken. And release the ancient evil that dwells inside…

* * *

-Secure Facility, Unknown Location, Unknown Time-

* * *

The man took a seat on his side of the table and looked towards the old woman sitting across from him. "Tell me about the children," he said.

Catherine Halsey, creator of the SPARTAN-II Program and now a war criminal, for crimes against the Human race, but she didn't hear him, or rather...chose to blatantly ignore him. She was lost in thought, remembering the little boy she had kidnapped and turned into a soldier. He was almost like a son to her...John...

The interrogator again tried to get her attention. "Dr. Halsey?"

Halsey finally looked up at him, her eyes tired and grave. She looked at him for a long time and said, "You already know everything."

The interrogator gave her a hard look before stating, "You kidnapped them."

"Children's minds are more easily accepting of indoctrination, their bodies more adaptable to augmentation. The result was the ultimate soldier. And because of our success, when the Covenant attacked, we were ready."

The man scoffed. "Dr. Halsey, you're bending history to your favor and you know it. You developed the Spartans to crush human rebellion, not to fight the Covenant."

What he said was true. The Spartans were originally developed to deal with the Insurrectionists. When the Covenant burned Harvest in 2525, and started the Human-Covenant War, Halsey's Spartans were not ready to deal with this kind of enemy. But, they rose to the challenge anyway, and ended up fighting the Covenant for nearly thirty years, and they continued to do so with the resurging remnant of the former Empire, most especially the Storm Covenant that had risen up out of the ashes of the war.

She said as much. "When one human world after another fell to the Covenant, when my Spartans were all that stood between humanity and extinction, nobody was concerned over why they were originally built."

"So you thought in the end that your choices were justified," the man spat out.

Halsey put her cuffed hands on the table and replied, "My work _saved_ the human race."

In a way, that was also true. The luckiest of her Spartans, Master Chief Petty Officer John-117, had risen above the others, fighting back the Covenant, eradicating the Flood, saving Cortana from the Gravemind, and destroying a Halo ring, Installation 04, to prevent it from activating. Now he was missing in action, lost to the stars.

The interrogator, however, didn't see it that way. With venom in his voice, he asked, "Do you think the Spartans' lack of basic humanity helped?"

Halsey looked at the man quizzically. He was different than the interrogators she face before. "What are you after?" she asked. "The others before you were Naval Intelligence, but you...you're something else."

"Records show Spartans routinely exhibited mildly sociopathic tendencies, difficulty with socialization. Furthermore..."

"The records show efficient behavior operating in hazardous situations," Halsey argued. "I supplied the tools to maintain that efficiency."

"But do you believe the Master Chief succeeded because he was, at his core, _broken_?" he asked with spite.

It felt like the temperature of the room dropped twenty degrees cooler. Halsey narrowed her eyes at him and asked with steel in her voice, "What does John have to do with this?" Her eyes then widened in surprise as she realized what he was saying. "You want to replace him."

The interrogator looked at her coldly. "The Master Chief is _dead_."

"His file reads _'missing in action'_ ," she argued.

The man chuckled darkly. "Catherine, Spartans never die?"

Halsey stood up and said, "Your mistake is seeing Spartans as military hardware. My Spartans are humanity's next step. Our _destiny_ as a species. Do not underestimate them." She then looked at the man straight in the eye and added, "But most of all, do not underestimate... _him_."

* * *

-Three Years Later; 2556 Milky Way UNSC Time, 20 Years Before Battle of Yavin Andromeda Time-

* * *

 _"Mayday, mayday, mayday. This is UNSC FFG-201_ Forward Unto Dawn _, requesting immediate evac. Survivors aboard. Prioritization code: Victor Zero Five dash Three dash Sierra Zero One One Seven."_

It kept repeating through space and there were some who had intercepted it, after three long years of reaching someone, never did either one of them think that not one, but three parties would intercept it.

* * *

-Coruscant; the Office of Supreme Chancellor Palpatine-

* * *

"We intercepted this message from one of our comm buoys out in the very edge of the Outer Rim. Judging on how the transmission was sent, and its coding we believe it originated somewhere in Wild Space." Palpatine said as he pressed a button to stop the transmission.

"You think this could be a new species?" Senator Amidala spoke in surprise, she had been called along with Senator Organa whom was sitting next to her in the large circular office.

"It may be so, we only recently three years ago had made contact with Kamino after Count Dooku wiped its existence from the Jedi Records." Obi-Wan was standing in a hologram form to speak at the meeting along with his former Padawan Anakin Skywalker, and his own Padawan Ahsoka Tano. They were attending the funeral of the deceased Steela Gerrera who died in battle against the Separatists, and freed Onderon from their control. "This wouldn't be the first time we missed a species."

"It could be a trap by Dooku. A lot of expeditionary and salvage ships have gone missing in Wild Space in the last three years. And we've had no reports of survivors ever making it back." Anakin stated at one possibility, it would not be the first time he has placed such bait to trick the Jedi to kill them. Ever since the Clone Wars began a lot of ships had gone mising when they ventured into Wild Space, a part of the galaxy that they have yet to fully explore, and due to the Separatists advances in the war, the Republic could not spare the resources to

"Perhaps so, but it could be as it says. And if this truly is a new species or an existing one that has been lost like the Kaminoans, then we should send a ship to initiate contact." Luminara Unduli said thinking that they should take this bit slow, and perhaps with more positivity. A new species could either prove to be a great ally, or a great enemy, and it would be best to discover which of the two. Her Padawan Barriss Offee nodded in agreement, a discovery of a new species excited her and she yearned to learn more about the cultures that cultivates their galaxy, "We could learn so much from whoever these people are, it would be in all our best interests if we did make contact. They could be peaceful."

Yoda was sitting down on the floor, he had begun to sense something within the Force, "Something...", everyone in the room now turned to him, they saw his facial expression and it worries them, even Palpatine, "...something awakens, something dark, ancient, full of hate, grief, sadness, and malice..." He saw a being that towered over him, and was garbed in strange armor, the being reached out to him, and then he saw nothing but the darkness. Yoda opened his eyes, "Forever changed, the galaxy will be. Send a delegate, plus protection we must. All will be lost, if action not taken. Not see the end, many will not."

Ahsoka spoke up and said what needed to be said, "Then we need to find the source of the SOS, and help them. Whatever Master Yoda has seen, they may hold the answer to it."

Palpatine also decided to reach out into the Force just a tad, he too sensed it, whatever it was, he did not draw upon it to draw attention to him, as keeping up the Chancellor persona was part of his grand plan. But as he reached out, he too felt it. Feint as it was, it was truly dark more so than he, whatever this thing was, it would prove to be a very large wall in his plans. "I agree with Padawan Tano. A Delegation Task Force should be sent to make contact."

"In that case. Master Luminara, Padawan Offee, the two of you along with a Senator of the Chancellor's choosing will meet up with Master Kenobi, Knight Skywalker and Padawan Tano, and make your way to the source of the distress signal and make contact." Mace Windu said who sat next to the Grand Master.

The Chancellor saw this as an opportunity to gain knowledge on a potential enemy, or an ally to manipulate into absorption into the Galactic Republic. He turned to the Senators, "Senator Amidala. You represent the best of the Republic, and your skills have proven to be very effective I must say so, that along with your past rule as Queen of the Naboo would also further give you more credibility to establish a possible alliance with this species."

Padmé thought about it for a moment about what the Chancellor said, it was true but Senator Organa would also be just as equally acceptable to the mission, either way she had to decided, she glanced momentarily at her secret husband and saw that he had no problem with it...too much...he was overprotective, but he knew that she could take care of herself. "I will accompany the Jedi to the source, and attempt to make contact."

"Then it is decided, may the Force be with us all, in these dire days." Palaptine declared, and everyone soon vacated the room...he needed to make a call to his apprentice.

* * *

-Count Dooku's Mansion; Unknown Planet-

* * *

Count Dooku had been reading over the final report about the failure at Onderon. As he finished with the file, he suddenly received a call from his master. He immediately put everything down and pressed the comms button and kneeled in respect of his master, "What is your bidding, Lord Sidious."

"I have received a distress signal of unknown origins from Wiled Space, it would appear to have been broadcasting for four years deep within the area. I want you to assemble a war ship to intercept it and 'convince' the species to join the Confederacy. They could prove to be a useful ally if in any way…"

"…and if they should prove not useful?"

"…then eliminate them. Leave no survivors and bring the ship back for analysis and reverse engineer the technology aboard the ship."

"As you wish my master." And with that Sidous cut the transmission, and now Dooku punched up his best general and his best bounty hunter. "General Grevious, Jango Fett…I have a task for the two of you…"

* * *

-Jul 'Mdama's Fleet, Outside of Requiem-

* * *

Jul had been making sure that the fleets were ready, as he had a feeling that the day was coming, the day that Requiem would finally open to them.

The last of his Lieutenants: Gek 'Lhar, Vata 'Gajat, Sali 'Nyon, and Kitun 'Arach had return from the raids back in their home Galaxy with many more ships and followers to the Storm Covenant. He had practically almost rebuilt the former _Fleet of Particular Justice_ with what he had, but that was just a comparison. Wether it surpassed Thel's former grand fleet was up to those who once served in it.

They all had gathered many new shipyards and weapons factories hidden throughout the Galaxy, and they could manufacture ships, vehicles and weapons for their Covenant and they brought some of the old species back into the fray: the Drones, the Jackals' cousins the Skirmishers, new Hunter models, and many Brutes eager to tear the flesh from Human bones. Destroyers, Corvette, Assault Carriers, and Battle Cruisers could now be built for them when they needed them, and even Super Carriers, though they would take longer than any of the formers, but that still did not deter him from reveling in the success that he had achieved.

For three years they had stayed near Requiem, hardly ever diverting from it, though they did have to destroy many ships that came near them, but that didn't mean that he would have them all destroyed, every so often he would order one or two of them to be brought aboard to 'talk' to the crew members, and eventually kill them when their usefulness had run its course, which mostly happened right after the 'talks' ended, and he had the ships stripped down to see what they could use.

The knowledge within the databases proved useful more so than the crews ever did. He now had more knowledge about the Galaxy that the humans in his own had called it Andromeda after the raiding parties lead by his lieutenants returned over three months ago.

With the current Clone Wars raging in the Galaxy, he could use it as an opportunity to strike at the many human dominated planets and use their resources for the Storm's gain, once they had Requiem in their hands. Nothing would stop them…

And now soon, Requiem would open, when Gek reported he said that the _Infinity_ had spotted him and attempted to engage him, they would soon more than likely pursue them here from the Forerunner gate. Now all they had to do was wait…and the wait was not a long one, one of his bridge members grabbed his attention. "Supreme Commander 'Mdama! Our scanners have detected a Human ship!"

' _Finally…'_ Jul inwardly thought to himself, he walked over towards the console where the Commander Elite had brought his attention towards it, "Did they follow Gek's fleet?"

"No, a different approach vector. What are your orders?"

The Humans of Andromeda were useless to him but the ones of the Milky Way, his home Galaxy could more than likely open Requiem for him. "Send out boarding parties and bring the humans here, they shall awaken Requiem for us. Whether they want to or not. Our wait is at an end. Paradise awaits us…" Jul was cut off when another monitor appeared next to the current one and saw that two different parties had shown up, he recognized the two ships, one belonging to the Republic dogs that were lead by corrupt politicians, while the other belonged to the Confederacy whose military was made up of machines, pale imitations of the Sentinels and other machines made by the Forerunners in his opinion. It seemed that they too had come into possession of the source of the distress signal that emanates from the Human ship.

Jul walked over to the center of the bridge and punched up holograms of his Lieutenants and they stood at attention, awaiting his orders, "Have our fleets spread across Requiem. I want to ensure that we have every possible part of the surface we see in our control, once we bring the Humans on board from the ship, we will enter Requiem and awaken its power for us to use. Do not allow the other ships to get near Requiem, or they will destroy any chance of entering it." They all gave their salute to their Supreme Leader and went to work arranging their fleets across Requiem, slowly but surely.

* * *

-The _Dawn_ -

* * *

The _Dawn_ had been floating aimlessly throughout space for three years, so far nothing interesting had happened, but now, an orange energy pulse moves through the ship, scrambling some of the still-active viewscreens. Inside the cryo chamber, a sphere of blue light hovers above a holographic projector. The sphere disappears in a flash of blue as the ship shakes again, replaced by the figure of, Cortana, who appeared sitting on the holographic projector, letting out a small gasp as she did. When the severed Frigate had started rumbling, she knew something was wrong. She was distressed enough already, but the rumbling was starting to worry her.

She slowly stood up, and after gazing around the room for a few seconds, she brought a holo-terminal. She quickly browsed through a status report as the ship continued to shake:

SHIP STATUS: CATASTROPHIC LOSS, ALL DECKS

SYSTEM STATUS: 6% SHIP SYSTEMS ONLINE

LAST CONTACT WITH UNSC: 3 YEARS, 2 MONTHS, 5 DAYS

LOCATION: UNKNOWN

CREW CAPACITY: 782

CREW SURVIVING: 1

Cortana didn't see anything that could help her, so she brought a schematic of the _Dawn_. Several red rings appeared in multiple places throughout the ship, indicating several integrity failures. Cortana knew that, in this situation, it meant only one thing: they were being boarded. She ruled out the UNSC as a possibility, since they would have first tried to initiate contact. That left only one other possibility, and she did not like it one bit.

She immediately brought up the cryo chamber's control interface, all the while becoming increasingly agitated. A schematic Cryo-Tube 16's single occupant appeared, alongside life signs and cryo-tube diagrams, as well as a single prompt:

REACTIVATE

Cortana hesitated for a moment, unsure if she should wake the occupant up or not. Seeing no other way, she accessed the prompt.

FOD=9939 DECK 4 / CRYO SUBDECK. ARRAY=93

CRYOGENIC SYSTEM SHUTDOWN . . .

STASIS CONVERSION IN PROCESS . . .

ACTIVE

Cortana sighed as she turned to observe Cryo-Tube 16. As air pumped into the tube and the ice covering the glass surface melted away, she remembered the advice given to her by the occupant all those years ago. It was time to follow it through.

"Wake up, Chief. I need you."

* * *

 _ **And so, with the release of Halo 5: Guardians and Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens this year, I felt like I had to do a crossover for these two universes. Both of which I am huge fan of, but that doesn't not mean I liked some of the things that happened in canon (I'm looking at you Halo 5 and several things from the Prequel Trilogy). So I will be changing some things from canon, and I hope that I can do this story justice and make it entertaining for both fan bases.**_

 _ **Anyway, I will also be doing a Naruto/Star Wars crossover as well, and no he won't become a Jedi or a Sith, that crap is extremely overused. And with the amount of stories that I have I will be creating a schedule for writing the stories. So anyways, please favorite, follow, read and review (no flames please as they will be deleted). Enjoy everyone :)**_

 ** _In the next chapter, the Chief will be fighting the newly formed Storm Covenant in the Dawn while the Repubkic and the Confederacy will be pushed to their limits in space combat but the pesky aliens, and enter Requiem they shall!_**


	2. Wake Up John

Chapter 1: Wake Up John

* * *

The Master Chief groggily regained consciousness, his vision blurring for a bit. At first he couldn't tell where he was, his confusion was evudent when he slammed his gauntlets into the glass surface in front of him. But just as he was about to break free, a familiar voice echoed through the speakers of the cryo-tube.

"Chief! Easy. You've been out for a while."

"Where are we?"

"Were still adrift on the Dawn," Cortana replied.

"Why did you wake me?" the Chief asked.

She seemed to not hear his question as she said, "Hang on. Bringing your systems online now." At the same time, his Heads-Up-Display appeared on the inside of his visor. It looked different from the HUD he had used before during the Battle of the Ark. Cortana seemed to noticed his confusion. "I rewrote your suit's firmware while you were out. Along with giving it an exterior makeover."

"You've been busy," John chuckled.

"Activating the ship's gravity generators."

As she said that, the debris floating around the cryo bay fell to the deck as the Frigate's gravity was restored. Among the debris, the Chief noted, was an Magnum. He made a mental note to grab the pistol and the Assault Rifle he had stored in the cryo bay before he was put on ice.

"Chief, look up. You need to pull the manual release," Cortana said.

As he looked up, he saw a lever right above his head. He reached up, pulled it down, and with his hands pushed the casket open. The Chief climbed out of the tube, grabbed the Assault Rifle stored beside him, checked the rifle, and walked up to Cortana's holo-tank.

"Seems like old times," she chuckled.

John smiled behind his visor. "Ready to get back to work?"

Cortana crossed her arms and replied, "I thought you'd never ask."

Her hologram disappeared as the Chief pulled out the data crystal containing her. He inserted the chip into his neural interface, the familiar cool mercury feeling filling his mind as Cortana integrated herself with the MJOLNIR Mk-VI/C armor suit.

He walked over to the Magnum, picked it up, made sure it was loaded, and placed it on the magnetic clamp on his right thigh.

As he readied he his Assault Rifle, Cortana filled him in on the situation. "We've got intrusion alerts lighting up on multiple decks. Our best bet to figure out who's boarding us is the observation deck—four floors up."

"Could it be a rescue team?" asked John just before the ship rumbled violently.

"Wouldn't bet on it," she said.

Acknowledging that there could be hostiles aboard, the Master Chief proceeded out of the cryo bay and across the walkway into the next room. A hologram of the stern half of the dawn floated in the center. As he entered the room, the ship shook again, causing the Chief to stumble. He immediately reached out a hand to steady himself on something, which just happened to be a console that contained the ship's diagnostics. As his hand touched the pad, a diagnostic sounded through the room's speakers:

"WEAPONS SYSTEMS—ONLINE."

After regaining his balance, John looked back at the hologram, noticing that some areas of the ship were now highlighted, indicating fully activated weapons. Glad that the _Dawn_ would be able to hold her own in a fight if need be, even when severed in half, he continued on out of the and proceeded down a hallway.

"How long was I out?" he asked.

"Three years, two months, five days."

The Master Chief was astonished. They've been out here for literally three years? "Somebody should have found us by now."

Just as the Spartan entered the next hallway, an orange energy field suddenly passed through the corridor, screeching the metal literally as it went through the ship, as well as through the Master Chief.

"What's that?"

"Sensor scan, high intensity! Doesn't match any known patterns!"

"How close are we to the observation deck?" he asked.

"It's directly above us," Cortana replied.

Realizing the need to make haste, John sprinted through another room and down the next hallway. Eventually, he arrived at the elevator entrance.

"The elevator doors look sealed tight," said Cortana. Acknowledging, the Spartan shouldered the Assault Rifle and put his hands between the doors. Using his augmented strength, he proceeded to force them open.

"Chief, be careful...!"

Cortana's warning came too late as the Chief forced open the doors, causing the room he was in to immediately lose pressure. A large crate behind the Spartan slammed into him, causing him to fly across the depressurized elevator shaft. He grabbed onto a nearby ledge on the other side as the crate continued to fall down the shaft.

"Because some areas might have lost pressure!"

"Right." A tad annoyed that she did tell him this sooner, she usually warned him before hand, so what gave?

The Chief started climbing up the shaft, slowly but surely. As soon as he got to the fourth ledge, he looked around for a place to grab on to, noticing an area to his left.

"Chief, watch out!"

At Cortana's warning, he looked up just in time to see debris falling towards him. Quickly, he jumped to the left and grabbed on to another ledge, barely missing the debris and watching it fall past him.

"I didn't realize the ship had deteriorated so badly," Cortana said.

The Chief resumed his climb, jumping back to the left as a large section of the shaft broke off and fell past him. He continued to dodge more debris, eventually reaching the observation floor. He pulled himself up and through the open elevator doors into a mist-filled room.

Just as he was about to stand up, the air in front of him wavered as a blue-armored Elite decloaked and raised an energy sword, about to strike him down. Years of combat saved him as he caught the Elite's sword arm. The alien spread his mandibles and roared at him. The Chief was about to punch him in the madibles to disoreint him, but the Elite was strong. Really strong...normally they weren't too much of a problem, but it seems like he was able to fight back against the Chief.

Even Cortana noted the Elite resisting the Chief, he was putting up a good struggle, but the Chief was able to get the upper hand at the last second and threw the Elites arms down and delivered a good lunch to his face and grabbed the mandibles, and threw the Elite down the elevator shaft. The Elite's roars faded as the alien plunged to his death.

The encounter left John confused. He voiced his confusion to Cortana. "I thought we had a truce with the Covenant. And they aren't that strong, was it the armor? I haven't seen that typ before."

"A lot can happen in four years, Chief. Either way, he's probably not alone. As far as that Elite's strength, I don't know, an Elite shouldn't be able to put up much of a fist fight against you, I'm not sure about that armor either, if I can get into their ships' systems, maybe I can dig up some info that'll save our hides. We need to be extra careful, from here on out."

Acknowledging, the Chief left the room and made his way to the Observation Room. As he was about to enter though, he saw a purple-armored Elite with his back to him, trying to activate a terminal, the Chief noted that not even this armor was what he remembered. Multiple Grunts with their gas masks were patrolling the deck below him. Two weapon crates flanked each side of the central platform, loaded with Magnums, Assault Rifles, and Frag Grenades.

Deciding that the Elite needed to be taken out first, he shouldered his Assault Rifle and unsheathed the combat knife attached on his upper-left forearm, and started to sneak up on him.

But while he was sneaking up on him, the Elite stopped momentarily as if he was hearing something, he turned back around to see the Chief a few feet away from him poised to grapple with the knife and slit his throat. The Elite roared in alarm and started to unload his Storm Rifle into the Chief, as he was making a mad dash right for him and tackled him over the observation platform down below where the Grunts were, alerting them to the fight tumbling in front of them. The Grunts were able get a bead in the to warriors but they dared not shoot while their comrade was in the line of fire. "The Demon is alive, that's...a big, uh problem..."

The Chief had shot at the Elite and tumbled down to the second floor of the deck and were now locked with one another. "Chief be careful, that Elite has a few Grunts flanking us on both sides. And I'm not too keen on the chance of them opening fire while we still have this guy to deal with."

"Agreed."

The Chief brought the knife down towards the Elite's exposed throat but was stopped by both hands as he activated his Energy Dagger built into the armor's wrist and tried to slice the knife's blade clean off from the hilt, but the Chief needed to end this quickly and brought his left hand down to pound into his knife hand, and got into the Elite's jugular ending his life. The Grunts saw what occurred and did what they do best...

"Leader dead! Run away!"

"The brochure said this would be fun!" _ **(Yes, I am turning the IWHBYD Skull on for this series for some lines of dialogue to keep the humor that we all enjoyed back in the day, it's just too damn funny.)**_

Some of them scattered but a few actually stood their ground and tried to fight the Chief, one in particular decided to get very grenade happy. One dropped his Plasma Pistol and primed two Plasma Grenades un his hands and charged towards the Chief, "Faith and devotion! Ayayayayayayayh!"

"Chief he's gone suicidal! Take him out." Cortana saw that this was about to go bad and warned her friend. "I see him."

The Chief brought up the Magnum from his leg clamp and shot the Grunt once in the head, he also took note that each of the Grunts had different armor from the original Covenant military that he once fought, they looked more exposed, but he saw that they looked bigger than before.

The Grunt's grenades went off and he dove back for cover to get to safer, some of the Grunts were retreating back but they stopped and turned around to see their fallen Elite commander and fellow Grunt, or what was left of them after getting caught in the explosions.

"He killed Poonflip! The flippiest poon we ever knew!"

"Let's get him! Chaaaaarge!"

The Grunts came out from their cover and started pelting the Chief's position behind several crates. A Heavy Grunt had holstered his Plasma Pistol and took out a Fuel Rod Gun from the back of his methane tank, and activated it, "I'm gonna open up a big can of whoop-ass!"

Chief peered over to where he heard the boast and saw that he really was going to do just that. He took a Frag Grenade from his belt and tossed it over to the Heavy's position just behind where he was and it exploded a moment later, "Oh shit…"

The Grunts were no more, save for a few left in the room, as they began to fire at the Chief in payback for their fallen brethren. Green balls of plasma splashed against his shields as he brought up his Magnum and fired. His first shot hit a Storm Grunt straight through the mouth, killing him instantly while spraying blue blood. Another shot saw another Grunt gasping for breath as his rebreather was severed. A shot to the head put him out of his misery.

Two down, four to go. John vaulted over the right side of the platform, landing right in front of another gas-sucker. A shot through the neck brought him down as another Grunt fired an overcharge at the Chief, bringing down his shields to nothing. He fired off a round as he moved into cover, nailing him in head. He reloaded the Magnum as he waited for his shields to recharge. Once the charge went back to one hundred percent, he moved out of cover and shot two rounds at a Grunt in the middle of overcharging his Plasma Pistol. The first round went through the alien's stomach while the other pierced his head. The dead Grunt fell to the floor as he released the trigger, the green bolt hitting the ceiling.

"That's the last of them," Cortana said. "Find the override for the blast shields so we can see what we're up against."

"Got it," acknowledged John. Making sure to grab some Frags and a few Plasma grenades, he climbed back up to the platform and headed to the terminal. On the ground beside where the Elite's corpse, he saw the Storm Rifle that he was holding before he dropped when he and the Chief tussled with each other. Knowing that there will be more like the Commander, he clamped his Magnum on his thigh and picked up the weapon. He touched the screen on the terminal and the blast shields all around the room started to rise on his command. Cortana spoke up to grab her partner's attention, "Ok, I have some good news and bad news, what do you wanna hear first?"

"Bad."

"Ok, so bad news. Those Covenant that we fought were enhanced like yourself, only not quite as extreme." That was bad indeed. If the Covenant started augmenting and enhancing themselves the way he had been, then how strong were they in force? Definitely much stronger than before in the war, "How enhanced are they?"

"From what I saw from just those Grunts and the two Elites, the Grunts appear to have had drugs pumped into their brain, giving them better sight and accuracy, their skin is just as breakable as usual, but when you killed one of their own they all immediately started to attack you in retaliation." Grunts hardly ever did that, they scattered with the exception of Black Ops and Commando units when staring down a tougher enemy.

"And those Elite's muscles were definitely enhanced letting them to be able to take you on in hand-to-hand for a bit, maybe even for a while against Commandos, Black Ops, and Zealot class combatants, even their hearing and eye sight were enhanced given that the one that you stabbed in the neck heard you coming behind him and the first one saw through all of that debris and mist from the elevator shaft. I can't say anything about the other species until we see them in action, or I can get into their systems." Bad news indeed, they clearly proved to be a bigger threat then before, though he wondered what the good news was, "And the good news?"

"The good news is these Covenant aren't outfitted like standard military," informed Cortana. "It's possible we just came across a rogue salvage ship."

But, once the blast shields were fully raised, they immediately saw that was not the case. Out in space were multiple Light Cruisers as well as a few Armored Cruisers, even three Assault Carriers and a Super Carrier approaching the _Dawn_. Squadrons of Seraphs and Phantoms filled the rest of the view. A flight of Space Banshees sped towards them before splitting up at the last second and disappearing from view.

"...Or we might have stumbled into an entire Covenant fleet," Cortana added nervously.

"Maybe they haven't recognized us," remarked John.

"That's one possibility..." She trailed off as two Phantoms with boarding arms attached underneath dropped into view in front of them and split off. "Landing craft, flanking us!"

The two Phantoms split off to different sides of the deck. As they took their positions, the boarding arms extended outwards and punched through the glass, causing the room to depressurize and anything not bolted to the floor to fly across the room in different directions. It wasn't until force fields popped around the arms that the room stopped depressurizing. The System PA came on as Grunts, Elites, and even Brutes started boarding! That really came as a shocker to the Chief and Cortana.

"Warning—atmosphere breach. Activating emergency barricades."

"The decompression put the room into lockdown!" Cortana said. "It'll take a few minutes to repressurize! But what the hell are the Brutes and Elites fighting on the same side for?!" They thought that when the Great Schism began that they wanted to tear each other throats out. "I guess we'll find out soon enough."

As the Covenant soldiers fired on his position, Chief primed a Frag Grenade and threw it into the middle of a lance on the right flank. A few seconds later, the grenade exploded, sending shrapnel and a few Grunts flying in different directions. The Ranger Elite leading the lance had his shields brought down a quarter, but otherwise was unscathed. The Brute Ranger on the other hand, was now immediately going into a full blown berserk. "The Pack shall feast on you, Demon!"

The Chief vaulted down again and fired the Storm Rifle, pelting the Brute's shields with blue plasma bolts. At the same time the shields were taken out, the weapon overheated, leaving the Chief vulnerable to the Brute's rampage. The Elite saw this and fired his own Storm Rifle. The Chief took cover under the central platform, shouldered his weapon, and brought out the Assault Rifle. He stepped out of cover and fired a continues barrage, filling the charging Brute's face with bullets that only seemed to piss hm off to going blind. As the Assault Rifle's ammo counter hit zero and the weapon clicked empty, the Brute finally fell forward dead, deep red blood pooling from his head that was still somehow together. The Elite backing him up holsters the Storm Rifle and pulled out an Energy Sword and charges at the Chief with the intent on cutting him in half, the Chief avoids the first strike and delivers a lunch to his face. The Chief brings back out his Assault Rifle and shoves the barrel into the Elite's face, and pulls the trigger ending his life.

The second lance behind him disembarked from the second Phantom and let loose with their weapons. The Chief was forced back into cover as green and blue plasma bolts peppered the deck beside him. He primed a Plasma Grenade and threw it at the lance, managing to stick the Elite in the chest. A few seconds later, the Ranger exploded in a shower of meat and blood, taking a few Grunts with him. The remaining two Grunts, seeing that their leader and brethren were dead, dropped their Plasma Pistols and decided to go suicidal.

The Spartan drew both his combat knife and his Magnum. With his right hand, he fired a round at one Grunt while with his left threw the knife at the other. The bullet ruptured the methane pack, causing the grunt to fly across the room like a rocket before exploding into crispy, meaty chunks. The last Grunt had his skull penetrated by the knife as it flew through the air. He was dead before he hit the deck. Then the grenades exploded in a big and bright blue light.

Cortana was trying to get into the Covenant Battlenet, until she came across two new ships of unknown origin that came of, Faster Than Light? 'That should be impossible! Only the Forerunners should have that kind of capability!' She thought to herself. She did some extra scans and saw that the red one was filled with human life signs, and non-humans aboard, that was odd, and the other one only had two life sign, one human and the other non human. Who the hell were these people?! Now she was seeing that the Covenant had launched at least a dozen or so Battle Cruisers to them and they had launched their own fighters against them. Both of the new ships engage each other, and now they were engaging the Covenant, they weren't going to last long, then the other slim blue-gray colored ship went back into Light Speed leaving the red ship all on its own. Then she started recovering a signal from it.

"Chief, two new ships just came into the fray, and one of them is trying to hail us, while the other one just bailed."

New ships? This didn't sound very good, if they were Covenant, or any other aliens that were hostile to humanity, then the situation just got worse. "Are they friendly?"

"I'm registering some human life signs onboard, as well as nonhumans. I guess we're about to find out. Patching them through now."

" _Hello?! Is there anyone listening on this channel? This is General Kenobi of the Galactic Republic, if there are any survivors onboard the_ Forward Unto Dawn _, please respond!"_

The Galactic Republic? They had no idea who that was, he didn't know if they could be trusted, but if they opted for trying to contact him rather than shoot at him like the Covenant did… "This is Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra-117, of the _UNSC Forward Unto Dawn_ , General Kenobi, do you read?"

* * *

-Coruscant; Republic Shipyards, the Delegation Ship, Several Rotations Ago-

* * *

The Jedi had come along with the Senator as per order by the Jedi Council, Ahsoka had been healing since the she had aided the rebels on Onderon and was doing her best to get back into physical peek, she was down in the ships gym doing some movements with her lightsabers and was enjoying the quiet before the supposed storm. As she was continuing with some meditations after finishing her physical work out, she needed to get back on her mental abilities.

She sat down and tried to meditate and began to see some things, people being killed by a large orange beam, deformed creatures rising from the ground, and one nearly leapt out at her, she gasped out in waking from her mediation and clutched her chest where the strange creature attacked her. "It felt so real…what was that?" She was starting to sweat from the shock of almost being killed in a vision, then she overheard the ships Admiral speak over the ship's comm system.

"All hands, prepare for the jump to Hyperspace."

Ahsoka got up from her position and took a towel to wipe her face, "Guess I better get to the bridge."

The Venator-class ship lifted off from the ground and began its ascent out of the atmosphere and a way to the future threat. The Jedi and the Senator of Naboo met up at the bridge, where they were discussing the possible first contact that would occur. Ahsoka saw that Padme was arguing with her master, "I think that you might be a little too worried about this. This could be historical for the Republic."

"Yeah, where we get lost in wild space along with the rest of the hundreds of ships that went missing in the last three years. That would be historical." Anakin replied sarcastically, "We could be walking into a trap by Dooku."

"Yes, it's already been mentioned more than once." Luminara was going over the ship's manifest, it was necessary apparently by order of the Chancellor since he grew worried over Master Yoda's unclear and dark vision. "I think you may be too paranoid about this."

"But…" Padme had enough of his negativity, "Anakin, enough. Just try to relax, this is a fist contact mission, and for all we know this may end up being something positive." Anakin looked down into his secret wife's eyes and saw that she wasn't going to have this continuing in throughout the flight to their destination. "Alright…but that doesn't mean I'm not gonna have this ship off the trigger if things go bad."

The Senator rolled her eyes, she knew that being ready to jump into the fray of things was something that he still enjoyed, hence the crazy tactics that he employed in the battlefield. She went down to her room in the ship to get some rest as they had a long journey to their destination.

"Ahsoka, we should head to our bunks, we have a long trip ahead of us." Barriss had come up alongside her friend and placed her hand on her shoulder to get her attention. "Besides I can't wait to meet whoever these people are. Who knows what we'll learn." She was like a giddy kid, eager to know more about things that interested her.

Ahsoka put on a small smile for a bit, "I don't really have an opinion right now honestly. But you have to admit, Master Yoda's vision did seem pretty mysterious in a bad way." Barriss did visibly frown a bit at what her friends said. That many would die if they didn't act quickly, "I know…but you never know what could come of this."

They headed to their bunks and drifts away into their dreams, or for Ahsoka, a nightmare. Ahsoka was tossing and turning, darkness began to drown her, she was standing on a white floor, as som green ooze began to rise further and further to her neck, she fell down to the ground and felt that she hit hard cold metal. She observed her surroundings and saw that she was in a large cavern that was glowing orange and then felt someone forcibly pulling her up to them, a figure in black smoke and orange glowing eyes and spoke to her, _"Your compassion for mankind is misplaced. They are nothing more than beasts, and the Mantle will never come into their possession. Come then warrior, have your resolution."_

Another figure cloaked in blue as large as the other with reptilian eyes had grabbed her throat, and clamped down tight choking her, _"You sympathize with humans? Then you will die like a human, for we are the Storm. Nothing will stand between us and their eradication!"_ It dropped her and she was now struggling to get up, but a massive silver foot had stopped her from getting and it raised a great metal blade over it's head and spoke, _"My reach exceeds that of the stars themselves, for I stand in service to the last one…the Mantle shall forever remain beyond their grasp."_ It brought down the sword and she went down another level, she looked around and saw that she was in the Senate building on Coruscant, she took her lightsabers out and activated them, but she was unable to use them, as she was struck in the back by lightning, force lightning to be exact.

She looked up to see a man cloaks in a black hood, he looked fail and old, but it was a ruse, she saw what he was: Sith. He reeked of the dark side, just like the other voices, he struck her again with the lightning and cackled as he did it, _"Unlimited Power! Gyahahahaha!"_

Ahsoka fell down to the Senate floor and blackness overtook he vision, she now stood in the middle of a room that she couldn't tell where anything was at all, her only source of light cam shining down upon, she couldn't hear anything save for some sort of slimed slithering around the room, then she heard another voice in the darkness, more toxic and frightening the others, _"Now the gates have been unlatched, headstones pushed aside. Corpses shift…to offer room, a fate you must abide."_ She saw that brown slimy tentacles were moving across the floor toward her, she had her lightsabers with her and she started to cut them up, but more just seemed to take their place, eventually they grabbed her arms and held her in place deactivating them and they soon covered her entire body, Ahsoka was struggling to break free, but it was all for naught. She asked the dark voice one last thing before her vision went black again, "What are you?!"

" _I…? I, am a monument. To all their sins…"_ She didn't even expect an answer, but when she received it, then she truly became afraid.

"Ahhhh!" Ahsoka woke up in a cold sweat with small tears running down her face, and her shoulders were being held by Barriss, "Ahsoka! What's wrong?! Talk to me!"

Ahsoka took a moment to try and calm down, but she found herself rolling her legs up to her chest and shivering. All of those voices, and the figures, filled with such toxic and deadly darkness, "Evil awakens…ancient and powerful evils awaken in the future. And there's nothing we can do to stop it." Barriss was wide eyed with what Ahsoka told her, she had visions every now and then as she heard that they helped her save Senator Amidala's life back on Alderaen, when Auura Sing was hired by Ziro the Hutt to kill her for revenge. Anakin and the other Jedi came rushing in to the bunk and asked what happened. Barriss spoke in Ahsoka's place since she wasn't a good condition to talk, a medical droid was called in to examine her. She was in shock and was given some mess to help calm her down and get her to sleep easier.

The Jedi returned to the bridge and gave their report of what Ahsoka said to Barriss, "She said, 'Evil awakens…ancient and powerful evils awaken in the future. And there's nothing we can do to stop it.'"

Masters Yoda, Windu and Plo Koon were on the honorable listening to Ahsoka's words. She had a deep connection to the Force if she was able to hear those voices, despite Yoda not being able to fully see the dark being that he saw back in the Chancellor's office. Plo Koon spoke up, "I know that Ahsoka is strong willed and is brave, but to be able to hear just voices and shadows of whatever it was she saw, and react the way she did, then we may be dealing with something beyond the Sith."

Mace spoke next, "I agree, this may no longer be a diplomatic first contact mission. Master's Kenobi and Unduli, I want you and everyone else to investigate this signal, whoever the survivors are, they may be able to shed some light and these voices."

"Darkness intoxicating, the Force has become. No longer in balance, it is. Padawan Tano may be, one who knows what to do." Yoda said, as he was having some difficulty standing even with his cane, it was not a good sign for the old master. The Force was not being kind to him right now.

"So you still want us to keep Ahsoka on the mission? After she just had this nightmarish vision?" Anakin was more concerned for his Padawan and his secret wife more than anything else on this mission. Mace had chastised Anakin, "You'll just have to help her work through it."

Anakin let out an annoyed sigh that showed that he didn't like the decision. The meeting was cut off as they went back to their stations and bunks for the time being, they still had a long ways to go to the distress signal.

Anakin asked down to the me at to check up on Ahsoka. "Hey there, Snips." He placed a comforting hand on her arm, "I know that you've had a bad vision, but remember that I'm here for you, and so is Padmé and the others, get some sleep." He walked out of the med bay and took the elevator back to the bridge.

For what seemed like forever everyone had gone about their business, swapping duties and sleeping. Anakin went down to the hangar bay to do some work on his fighter and the _Twilight_ , he felt better and was far more calm and relaxed when he was fixing things and doing maintenance on machines. Padmé came up behind him to to talk to her secret husband, "Ani, you need to rest. We're going to be busy when we get to the signal.

Anakin stopped fiddling around with his ship and turned to his wife, "I know, I know. It's just that…"

"You think Master Windu is being too harsh?"

"I think he should take it easy on Ahsoka, you saw her back when she woke up. She was terrified of whatever she saw or heard…and she doesn't scare easy from the whole time I've known her."

"Ahsoka is a strong girl, she'll pull through, but Windu is right. She's going to need you to help her through this."

Anakin sighed at her words, "You're right." He got up from his seat and walked down the med bay and stayed with Ashoka until she woke up. He had grabbed his own bed and slept adjacent from her, and the rest of the voyage, was much more peaceful, but nontheless, the atmosphere had become stale with many crew members becoming nervous.

The hours passed by and they were all rather on edge, then they finally had received data from the navi-computer that they were approaching their destination. "All hands, we are preparing to exit Hyperspace."

The Jedi and the command crew had arrived to the bridge to get a view of their destination, and the captain announced that they would be exiting soon. "Exiting hyperspace in 3…2…1."

The ship slowed down and when they did. They saw that they were heading into a graveyard. A graveyard of ruined ships that had been lost for the last three years. Captain Rex spoke over the grim scenery, "So…anyone else get the feeling that we're being watched right now?"

"You're not the only one…" Commander Cody said as well. Obi-Wan went hover to the holo-table to see what they could scan out here, "Let's see what's out there."

The ships started to scan through the are of space until it came back with something, "It looks like we found ourselves a new planet." The image of a sphere was shown past the debris field, and it was in front of a star. When the bridge finally came into view of the planet, they saw that not only was in a sense a beautiful sight to see, but that this was the only star they could see. It appeared that almost the light was being brushed off in a cosmic dust breeze, it looked very similar to a solar flare. "Is the entire planet made of metal?" Barriss had asked aloud.

"It would seem so, my young apprentice. But there's no visible way inside…how odd…" Luminara was examining the planet from the bridge and she began trying to sense out what was inside, much to her disappointment she found that she couldn't. They continued to journey closer to the metallic planet, only to receive word that they had been followed, "Sir, a ship is coming out of hyperspace. It matches the description of a Separatists capital ship!"

"They're here for the survivors too?" Anakin was already heading down to his fighter docked in the hangar bay, he had come up to the bridge when they exited hyperspace and went into the debris field.

"No, if anything they came for the technology from their ship." Obi-Wan had surmised.

The men went to their fighters, only to run into a recovered Ahsoka, she didn't look at her best and she had bags under her eyes. "Master, I heard…need me for anything?"

"Are you alright to fly?"

"…yeah, yeah I can fly. Let's kick some Droid ass…"

"Language, Ahsoka."

"Right, sorry."

The three Jedi rushed to the hangar bay to grab their fighters, along with the many clone fast preparing and launching the fighters to combat the droid fighters already outside their ships. Meanwhile on the bridge, Luminara was coordinating with the fighters and trying to keep them in course to the distress signal, but then she received a hail from the Separatist ship. "Who is this attacking us?" Though she already knew the answer…

"Greetings Jedi scum. Quite a coincidence that you too are moving to help some survivors of an unknown species." General Grievous shows up as a hologram in the holotable sitting in his command chair on the bridge, he spoke with false surprise and sorrow about their mission. He obviously was sent by Count Dooku to obtain their technology and any information about the species.

"Spare the false pleasantries Grievous. You're obviously here for their technology, not for the safety of the survivors and to make contact."

"Only party true, I have also been tasked to make contact as well. But should they prove to be 'uncooperative', I guess I will have no choice but to defend myself, and put them down like dogs." Grievous took joy in pretending to be a possible victim of an attack by a new species. Grievous cut the transmission as the Republic ship was rocked by another explosion from a battery she'll from Grievous' ship. Luminara turned to the ship's captain and saw him already giving out orders.

"All batteries fire on Grievous' ship, take out their fighters…"

"Captain, see if you can get us to the source of the distress signal. We may need to extract them and make a jump to hyperspace back to Coruscant."

"Yes Ma'am."

The Republic and the Separatists forces were going at me another from their cruisers and their fighters, as well as a little reunion between enemies of old.

"Blast, this is why I hate flying!" Obi-Wan was just hit from a ship he thought he saw before, "I'v seen that ship before…" His open thoughts were interrupted when he heard someone's voice over his comms, _"Hello, Kenobi. I must say it's been a while."_

"Jango Fett, I thought that was your ship shooting at me. So what's the job this time? Contact, collection, or did you come all the way out here just to greet little ol' me?"

 _"A bit of all of the above if I must say, but anyways, business is business. You know how these things go."_

"Oh, of course. I can't quite argue with the nature of bounty hunters."

Jango's _Slave I_ started to pursue Obi-Wan's fighter through the dogfight between the two forces, he almost was taken out, had it not been for Anakin and Ahsoka's well timing. _"Master, are you alright?"_

"I am now, thanks to you two, I have to get back to the hangar or I'll be done for."

Obi-Wan was able to get back to the hangar and regroup with Commander Cody and Luminara on the bridge, everyone was on high alert and doing what they could to lessen the damage done to the ship and continuing towards the mission.

The captain looked to see Obi-Wan enter the bridge and informed him of the current progress, "General Kenobi, we're making our way toward the planet. It was General Luminara's suggestion that we make our way to the survivors ship to pick them up and retreat to Coruscant."

"If that's the case then we should probably start scanning for them."

"Right away sir."

The captain started to scan for where the distress signal was coming from, and was shocked to see that not only did they locate it exactly, but what was currently surrounding it. Barriss had been going to comms and helping coordinate the fighters until she saw what the captain and Obi-Wan saw, all three of them were completely slack jawed. They saw at least around two hundred ship signatures around the distress signal.

Were they already beaten to it? Did they come from inside the planet? As soon as they saw them, several of them started to disappear around the signal and instantly scattered around parts of the planet.

Barriss spoke up from the shock "Ummm, Master Kenobi, did you just…"

"Yes, Barriss, the ships suddenly disappeared and reappeared off our scanners…that should be impossible…"

Both ships were heading towards the distress signal and that's when they finally saw the other ships. Many of them were practically the size of their own ships as well as the Separatist's but some where even far more massive, a few of them were as big as the Malevolence, while there was a ship so massive that it practically made everyone else a dwarf in comparison.

But that is where the similarities ended, everything else about them was unlike what they saw before, and alien in many ways. The were curved in several ways to give the appearance of a whale and other aquatic animals, some even having fins or hooks near what would be considered their heads.

Kenobi saw the ships and had a good feeling what they were made for, but he decided to get a second opinion so he turned to his second in command, "Cody, what do you think those ships were made for specifically?"

Cody knew instinctively, "If I had to guess sir…war."

Barriss while still a Padawan, was still a gifted one at that, one of the very few sent into battle of the Clone Wars, she decided to try and reach out to the inhabitants of the ships with the Force to see what their intentions were, it when she did she sensed…nothing? Nothing?! They had no Force signature?! "No, no…that's impossible! How…"

Luminara heard her apprentice yelling aloud, and apparently what she found had quite shocke her. "Bariss, what is it? What's impossible?"

"The people on the ships, they have no Force signature!"

That got her and Obi-Wan wide eyed. That was impossible, everyone had a Force signature, without it, they should be dead by all means. Then they started to hear a large whine over their comms, and a deep guttural and deadly voice spoke over the speakers, _"Your destruction is the will of the Gods! And we are their instrument!"_

Then the comms went silent as both ships stopped fighting one another, apparently the Separatists got their comas hacked to otherwise they'd still be fighting one another.

Padme was on the bridge helping where she could and spoke after the uneasy message was sent to them, "I guess Anakin was right about this somehow…"

All of a sudden, at least five of those ships had appeared right in front of them out of some sort black holes that they each emerged from. They scattered into a formation around the Republic and the Separatists and had started to open fire on their ships, they were instantly shocked that they could pull maneuvers like this at the very beginning of a battle.

* * *

-The Separatists-

* * *

Meanwhile with the Separatists, General Grievous was having the time of his life' killing Jedi scum and Clone dogs always brought him joy to his heart, but when he recovered the message from the new ships from the fleet that even he was impressed by its size, he knew that he was pretty much screwed… "We're out gunned…" Grievous punched up Jango Fett, he knew that if he retreated without Dooku's prized bounty hunter then he would be in a world of pain and suffering for a long time, "…Jango, pull back to the ship, we're getting out of here. Let the Jedi deal with these people."

"Oh, I got their little message, and I'm pretty sure the Jedi did too, going off how they stopped firing at us. I'm pulling back to the hangar, we're gone."

Jango piloted the _Slave I_ back to the ship and they immediately turned around to get the hell out before the unknown ships could fire on them, making a jump to hyperspace. Dooku would not be pleased with their failure, but he would be interested in a possible new faction in the galaxy that was more than ready to go to war.

* * *

-The Republic-

* * *

The captain just got a lot of reading emerging from the ships, and he didn't like them one bit. "Sir, several of those ships just launched several fighters heading towards us, we don't have that many of our own to counter them!"

"Get us closer to the survivors, we grabbing them and getting out of here!" Kenobi order the captain, they couldn't abandon them to these creatures. He decided to try and sense out the survivors ships and couldn't, just like these people, they had no Force signature.

The ship they saw, or rather half of a ship was different from the others, as it was more like their own and had the name _Forward Unto Dawn_ printed in bright white letters, and had an avian creature clutching the letters 'UNSC' for whatever reason, it puzzled him for a bit as to what happened to the ship, but they had little concerns for that at the moment.

"I need someone to open all comm channels and keep them from trying to get in. I'm sending out a message to the survivors."

The comms man turned to Obi-Wan and told him straight up, "Can't garuntee that I can keep those guys out long enough since they got into our own comms like nothing, but go right ahead General Kenobi."

"Thank you." Obi-Wan pressed the open comms button to start the message. "Hello?! Is there anyone listening on this channel? This is General Kenobi of the Galactic Republic, if there are any survivors onboard the _Forward Unto Dawn_ , please respond!" He had to yell into the speaker due to the fact that the bridge was bustling with activity and their fighters currently engaging the unknowns.

A couple of minutes had passed before they got a response from the ship, " _This is Master Chief Petty Officer Sierra-117, of the_ UNSC Forward Unto Dawn _, General Kenobi, do you read?"_

* * *

-The Chief and Cortana-

* * *

" _Thank the Force, we thought that these people had killed you! What is your status?"_

"Green, sir. And these people call themselves the Covenant."

" _The Covenant? Is that who these people are? Why are they attacking you and us? We received your distress signal, do you need help down there?"_

"General Kenobi, this is UNSC AI Cortana. Yes we need help, we've been trapped in this ship for three, almost going on four years and need assistance. Also, yes, they call themselves the Covenant, or Covenant Storm from what I gathered from their Battlenet. The UNSC has been engaged with them in a war for over thirty years."

Ahsoka and Anakin had been listening in on the conversation between Obi-Wan and the survivors. Anakin was practically livid now that odds are, _"Great! Now we're probably going to be fighting a two front war now."_

 _Ahsoka on the other hand, was a_ little disturbed by what she said, it wasn't that they had been in that ship for four years, and it wasn't the fact that they had been engaging them in a war for over thirty years, no…it was the name…Covenant Storm…Storm…that name made her shudder in remembrance of her vision: _"You sympathize with humans? Then you will die like a human, for we are the Storm. Nothing will stand between us and their eradication!"_

"General Kenobi, how many ships do you see?"

" _We originally scanned and saw that they had at least two hundred ships concentrated around your ship, but ever since we came into their view and vice versa, they started scattering all over the planet, but the largest one we saw was at least almost thirty kilometers long."_

That made the the duo pause a bit. If a Covenant Super Carrier was around, it wouldn't be long before they all got killed. Nothing short of a high yield HAVOK Nuke could bring those things down, or if you did something crazy like with the _Long Night of Solace_ back on Reach all those years ago.

"We need to get off this ship." The Chief said out loud

"We've got bigger problems…we've got a Battle Cruiser on an intercept course!" Cortana alarmed everyone over the comms.

The Chief looked out the windows and saw the CCS-Class ship was moving closer to the Dawn, if that ship wasn't taken down soon, then they were as good as dead. "Sir, do you have anything on your ship to take that Battle Cruiser down with?"

" _Unfortunately no, we weren't outfitted for this kind of scenario. We originally thought that this was going to be a first contact scenario. Not only that our ship won't last much longer under this kind of punishment."_

Then the Chief thought back earlier to when he woke up, what the ships systems told him when he accidentally hit the button for the diagnostics of the ship. "Cortana, didn't the ship's sensors say will still had weapons systems online?"

"Yes, but only the Hyperion missiles, we'll have to fire them manually from the outer hull."

" _Will a single missiles be enough against that ship?"_

"If it's shields are down then yes, it'll effectively cripple it. If they're up. Then it'll do some damage to buy you some time to get to a better distance to fire on their fighters. Get behind the _Dawn_ and provide us with some cover fire once we reach the outer hull. Keep your comms open."

" _Copy that, moving behind the Dawn. But you'll need to hurry, we won't last much longer out here."_

The Republic ship started to move behind the Dawn while taking their own losses from the Covenant Seraphs, Anakin and Ahsoka continued to do what they could against the Storm fighters and taking several out, but the Seraphs had been upgraded with some extra shields since the Storm acquired the shipyards and the Huragok to forcefully improve their technology and equipment.

Cortana had cut off the comms to the Republic ship and had spoke to the Chief as she had obtained quite a bit of info from the Republics data banks. "Chief while we were talking with the general, I got into their systems and did some digging. There's a massive amount of info about where they come from, or rather where we are now."

"Where we are?"

"Yes, apparently this Galactic Republic has been around for a thousand years and it's made up of hundreds of different species. Also, as to the where we are, I copied the star charts that they had and compared them to ours and any other galaxies that we know about, along with what the Covenant has and get a load of this: we're in the Andromeda galaxy!"

"Wait, so that means…"

"Humanity exists in another galaxy! I don't know how it happened but I have maybe one possible theory."

Chief already had maybe a good idea, "The Forerunners…"

"Yes, my thoughts too, hopefully we can figure this all out once we get away from the Covenant."

"These Covenant seem more fanatical than the ones we fought before."

"I can't really say why they would be, other than the possibility that the augmentations and enhancements have affected their brain chemicals. I can only speculate at this point honestly."

The Chief and Cortana had made their any down to the airlock after fighting many more Covenant Storm soldiers, and they had gained more info from the firefights. The Skirmishers were back and they were viscous as hell. Their claws were razor sharp and were pretty good at digging into metal and they could pounce on you if they got the chance. The Brutes bone density had been increased a lot, hence why the first one didn't go down until an entire Assault Rifle clip had been emptied into his head. So straight up armor piercing rounds from precision weapons and explosive weapons were the only options to use against the Brutes.

"Chief. Cortana. Have the two of you reached the outer hull yet? We have to pull our fighter back or we'll lose them for good."

"We're at the airlock now sir." She cut the comms off and spoke to the Chief, "The auxiliary launch station should be your left out of the airlocks. You'll have to prime the launch for ignition."

The first thing the Chief noticed when he exited the airlock was a Battle Rifle floating in front of him. Discarding the Brute Shot he had grabbed earlier from a previous firefight,, he grabbed the Battle Rifle while activating the magnetic soles of his armored feet, keeping him in place. He looked outwards toward space and saw that the Battle Cruiser had moved considerably closer to the _Dawn_. He also noticed that the severed frigate had gotten closer to the metal planet.

"Uh, I'm sorry-did I miss orbiting a Forerunner planet at some point?" Cortana said.

"One thing at a time,"

"Chief, Cortana. We're positioned right behind the Dawn, and we've pulled back our fighter save for two, they're the best we have onboard. Anakin, Ahsoka. Give them covering fire where you can."

"Copy that."

"Copy that.

"Covenant Phantoms on approach, at least four of them!"

"We've got them!" Anakin and Ahsoka's fighters had used up the last of their heavy missiles and were only able to take down one Phantom for themselves as they now had heavier armor and shielding like their deep space gunboat counterparts.

"Ah-ha! We're in luck, that cruisers shields are down. Assuming they don't raise them that missiles is gonna be one hell of a surprise!" Cortana exclaimed with confidence and cheerfulness in her voice.

Two Phantoms still managed to land on the outer hull and drop in more troops. There were at least two Ranger Elites and a Ranger Brute as well as a few Jackals taking positions at the far end that came out of one Phantom, while the rest were Ranger Grunts were down below running towards his position, from the other Phantom.

Just then, an ionized beam of white-hot plasma, fired from a Jackal's Beam Rifle, grazing his shields and brought them down to seventy-five percent. He took cover back in the airlock and waited for his shields to recharge. Once they were back to full strength, he leaned out, brought up the Battle Rifle, and fired a three-round burst. While he didn't hear the weapon fire in the vacuum of space, he saw the results of it as the bullets crossed the distance between him and the sniper in milliseconds. The bullets passed through the Jackal's head, leaving the corpse floating lifeless. The Chief target the other two Jackals, one of them holding a Covenant Carbine, and after two more bursts achieved the same result.

By now, the Grunts had gotten close enough to where their Plasma Pistols and Needlers were effective. As soon as the spotted the Chief, they opened fire.

The Chief quickly reloaded the Battle Rifle and, while dodging the Needler rounds, fired on the Grunts, catching each of them either in the head or in their methane packs. The ones shot in the head gently floated off into space while the ones with ruptured methane tanks shot off like bottle rockets flying through the air and eventually exploding like fireworks. One such Grunt was sent flying towards an Ranger Brute holding a Carbine. When the methane pack exploded, not only did it destroy the Grunt, but it also brought the Brute's shields down. John saw this and fired another burst at the Brute's head, the explosion didn't outright kill him, but he did start to suffocate quite quickly afterwards and floated off into space.

He quickly moved up as the remaining two Elite Rangers fired on him with their Storm Rifles. The Chief shouldered his Battle Rifle and grabbed a floating Needler while moving into cover again. After reloading the weapon, he stepped out of cover and fired at the closest Elite. Seven pink needles punched through the shields and embedded themselves in the Elite's chest. A split-second later, the needles detonated, and the Elite blew apart in pink mist. The Chief fired again at the remaining Elite as the alien tried to move out of the way; however, the needles tracked his movement, and a few moments later, the Elite joined his brother in the afterlife.

The path to the launch station now clear, Chief continued across the hull and up the ramp. A Jackal with a Carbine tried to get the drop on him but was quickly put down before he could do anything. A second later, he saw a terminal at the far end.

"There's the launch station!" Cortana exclaimed. The Chief hurried to the console and touched the screen.

MISSILE LAUNCH CONTROL

INITIATED

" _Ahsoka, keep the Chief covered! My fighter's taken too much damage already I have to head back now!"_

" _Don't worry master, I've got it under control."_

"Launch initiated!" Cortana announced through the comms. At the same time, Ahsoka saw a long, large missile slowly rise out of a compartment in the _Dawn's_ hull. But, suddenly, as the missile was about to fire, it stopped rising.

"Great, the blast door's jammed! The missile won't fire until it's clear. Chief, get down there!"

At the same time Cortana said that, two more Covenant Phantoms descended down to the Chief's view of the hull and quickly offloaded their troops before heading off. The path to missile was now blocked.

* * *

-Ahsoka-

* * *

Helping out one last time before she had to return to the ship, Ahsoka shot towards the Covenant troops and fired her weapons. Green laser bolts raked across the hull, most of them impacting the enemy soldiers. By the time her fighter shot past the missile, all of the soldiers were dead.

"You're good to go, Chief!" She said. "The path is clear! I have to head back now!"

When she turned her fighter around, she saw that the green-armored soldier was already at the blast door. She watched in amazement as he pushed and then kicked the mechanism into place.

 _"You did it!"_ Cortana exclaimed. _"Get back!"_

Finally free, the massive missile launched itself from the silo and shot off towards the Battle Cruiser, which was in the process of charging up some sort of ventral green energy weapon. Ahsoka saw the missile disappear behind the purple warship. At first, she thought the missile had missed, but a second later, the Battle Cruiser lurched to its side as a massive yellow fireball appeared behind it. The impact and explosion caused the purple ship to shake violently and bits of the ship broke off into space with parts of the ship losing their lights signifying that it was crippled. It wouldn't be a threat anymore for a good while, they would have to dry dock it at a shipyard for the substantial repairs for the ship.

Ahsoka made it back to their ship with many of the crew members doing what they could to give out medical attention and to out out the fires on the ship, but then all of a sudden, an orange energy field suddenly passed through the corridor, screeching the metal literally as it went through the ship, as well as through the Jedi and the crew. The very same one that scanned the _Dawn_.

Obi-Wan as well as the other Jedi felt a very massive disturbance in the Force after the field passed through them. It felt like the dark side, but yet at the same time, it wasn't. It felt thick and heavy, it was nothing like they had ever felt before.

While also at the same time, a more concentrated orange ray was scanning the Chief.

* * *

-The Chief & Cortana-

* * *

"Chief?" Cortana said.

"The Covenant weren't the ones scanning us," Chief said.

Just then, a section of the planet started opening, revealing a blue-white energy field beyond it. The Storm ships nearest to the opening suddenly broke their formations apart as everything was starting be pulled in.

"So, now can we worry about the giant metal planet?!"

" _What's happening? Did we do something to the planet? How is it doing this?"_ Obi-Wan asked Cortana over the comms.

"It's using a gravity well to pull us inside the surface!" informed Cortana. "We've gotta hurry. The second we cross the dome's event horizon, it's atmosphere is going to tear us apart! General Kenobi, your ship should still be intact enough to make it inside, I can't say anything about once you make it inside! Whatever you do, don't fight it! We'll find our own way off the ship!"

 _"How?! You just said that it will tear you apart! You'll die!"_

"Haven't you heard, General Kenobi? Spartans never die," Chief said as he cut communications with him.

Obi-Wan followed Cortana's advice and let the ship be pulled in, meanwhile he was also compounding what they had just discovered: a brand new government called the Covenant Storm, an AI that was able to express emotions and act very much like a human normally would, a giant metallic planet that would more than likely the greatest discovery in the history of the galaxy, that was all he able to do before the blinding light forced him shut his eyes and he and the rest of the crew blacked out from crossing the threshold.

But not before hearing a demonic and deadly voice in his head...a warning of what was to come in the days ahead, _"I have long dreamt of this day…Reclaimer."_

* * *

-The Chief & Cortana-

* * *

As John cut communications with General Kenobi, he asked Cortana, "Where are the closest escape pods?"

"Aft vehicle bay! I'm tagging the closest airlock, go!"

An objective appeared on the Chief's HUD and he sprinted across the hull towards it. All around him, anything and everything that was not bolted down was pulled towards the opening. Eventually, he made into the airlock as the door closed behind him and he waited for the room to repressurize.

"Hull integrity at thirty percent." The ships intercom spoke over the badly damaged ship.

As soon as the room was repressurized, the door opened and the Chief sprinted through the ship, avoiding collapsing debris and exploding hallways.

"All but one of the grav generators just went dark!" Cortana explained.

Eventually, the Chief made it to the doors leading to the escape pods, but as soon as he approached them, one was ripped from its hinges.

"Chief!" Cortana yelled as the bay rapidly depressurizes when its ripped away. The Chief grabbed onto a railing, but it was pulled into the vacuum of space with him. His armored body slammed into the surrounding debris, draining his shields to zero.

"We're caught in the gravity well!" Cortana exclaimed.

"Can you track the escape pods?" he asked.

"Negative-look out!"

A large section of the _Dawn_ slammed into a Light Cruiser, causing it to break in half. The Chief managed to get through the large gap before he hit another piece of debris.

The last thing the Chief heard was Cortana yelling "CHIEF!" before a large piece of debris slammed into him and everything went black.

* * *

 _ **And done! This didn't take me as long as I originally thought, though I kinda wanted to show more of what the Covenant Storm was made of in a fight for this chapter to show you what they have been enhanced to show off, more enhancements will show up in the story later on, so please bear with me on this. Now I know that you guys were expecting the Separatists to go into Requiem also, but that doesn't mean they won't show up later in the series, after all…Requiem is too good of an opportunity to pass up as far as military tech goes.**_

 _ **So, next chapter will show the Chief finally making contact with some of the Republic while they try to recover, namely Anakin and Ahsoka will meet the Chief & Cortana. Anyways, continue to favorite, follow, read and review. Thank you guys and enjoy my other stuff I have in my profile :)**_


	3. Requiem Part 1

_"And yet, this enormous construct, nothing less than a completely artificial world, this bastion designed for endless war, still impresses in a way that a Halo cannot."_

* * *

Chapter 2: Requiem Part 1

Multiple wreckages made their way through the portal into the Forerunner planet. What was left of the Dawn, the Republic ship, and the multiple Storm fighters and dropships. Many of their own Cruisers and Carriers flew in with the gravity well's pull and stabilized themselves barely before they hit the ground of the Shield World.

Jul 'Mdama's _Light of Righteous Faith_ was the first to enter and recover from the ordeal and made way over to a tropical jungle area, from what the scanners said there were several Forerunner structures located. It would do for now to land his troops and begin searching for a way into the planet's core, he punched up Gek's ship as it was one of the ships to get dragged into Requiem, "Gek, begin searching for a map room, I want to know how we can get our ships into the core, and begin searching for any survivors from the wreck of our ships."

"Yes, Supreme Commander, 'Mdama. And what of the Humans and the Republic dogs…?"

"Send out Hunter-Killer battalions out for them. No survivors. But do not glass this planet, it would be best that we do not anger him." It was not wise to start destroying anything inside, as he did not know if anything could be of use to them strategically or tactically. And if it would anger their future leader.

He turned to a Grunt on the comms in the bridge, and had him relay info to the other ships.

The Grunt nodded in understatement of his orders, but he started to look a little nervous, or as nervous as a Grunt could look. "I understand…but we also have come across a more pressing issue with the humans…"

Jul narrowed his eyes a bit, "Yes…?"

"The raiding part is you sent to the human ship, or what was left of it…they reported only one survivor…"

"….and who was this survivor…?"

"They reported before they were killed…that it was the Demon…"

The Supreme Commander's eyes shot up in utter surprise, this wasn't possible! "What?! How?! He died years ago when the War ended!"

"We don't know, but he is here inside with us most likely…"

"Find him! Find him and kill him! Before he destroys everything we have been working for! Alert all of our soldiers! Alert all of our fleets! The Demon has returned, and he must be killed on sight before he destroys Requiem!"

"Yes, Supreme Commander!"

Jul could not afford to have any slip ups or unwanted guests here, he had much work to do if he was to stop the coming destruction at the hand of the humans. It wasn't revenge, nor was it truly satisfaction in his mind…but justice…true justice, for all those who have suffered at their hands…

* * *

-The Chief & Cortana-

* * *

The Dawn's wreckage came down in a fiery blaze down into a ravine, with the Republic ship not far behind it, including some Storm fighters and dropships.

The Chief laid down face first into the ground, but he began to stir and his right hand twitched. Instinctively he grabbed a MA5C Assault Rifle that was right next to him and got up to scan the area for any hostiles. He kneels down to ease up on the fast fade ding aching from having to enter Requiem through the unorthodox and unsafe methods. He checked back with his partner in his helmet, "Where are we?"

Cortana was just waiting for her partner to wake up, she was also nervous to tell him about the news, "Checking coordinate impact data…oh, well unfortunately it seems that the crash has jumbled me up a bit, though I think I can hook into comm channels and see if I can find us a good area to get a better reading."

"What about General Kenobi? Did they make it through the well?"

"Scanning…yes! They did, but it looks like they took some major casualties, I'm not sure about their ship I'll need time to see if it's still functional. Or if it can even be repaired that is." The ship that they entered in with was pretty basic, almost a combination of their own UNSC Halcyon-class cruiser and with some old basic level tech of the Covenant. It was interesting to say the least, but so simple in her opinion.

"Where are they?"

"They're about a 400 meters back through the wreckage that we're currently standing in front of."

 _ **[Halo 4 OST: Wreckage -Start-]**_

The Chief looked back behind him and saw that it would be no small feat to get behind this flaming wall of metal and electronics, he'd need to find a way to climb up but judging from what he was seeing he'd more than likely fall on his back and get more wreckage on him. He looked around to see that there were other big wreckages that seemed more stable to walk and climb up on, he made his way over towards one that was closer to the wall and trekked upwards past a few weapon crates that had BR55 Battle Rifles, M6G Magnums and M9 Frag Grenades stored in them, swapping the Assault Rifle for one he grabbed a few extra magazines for the Battle Rifle and his Magnum. He stepped over one of the crates on a severed part of the ship to see that a SRS99D-S2 Sniper Rifle was relatively intact. That would come in handy for any long range shootouts and taking out any scouts perched up in towers and other high places.

Suddenly two Banshees and a Phantom passed over his head out away from where the Republic was situated at. Cortana started picking up chatter from the Battlenet that the Storm was sending out search parties to kill them, "Chief, we need to move out of here."

"Agreed."

He saw ledge that he could jump out to and climb up over the wall of wreckage, he stepped back a bit to get a running start at the ledge he was about to start until Cortana spoke up informing him of something, "Oh before you try to run and jump up to that ledge, I should tell you about your armor's new tricks."

"Why didn't you tell me back on the Dawn?" He was a tad irritated with her, if he had some new abilities in his armor then they certainly would've made things easier form him against the Storm.

"Well we were more preoccupied with the Battle Cruiser about to shoot us down and the Republic needing some help since they were outgunned and were about to get blown out into space."

"Point taken."

"Ok, so I made a few adjustments for your armor to have thruster jets, built into your back."

"What will that do?"

"Essentially they'll give you a much needed boost to get across large gaps and allow you to hover in the air for a while before dropping down. It'll also help you when you need to get out of the way of a stray explosion or an enemy bearing down on you, putting a good distance between you and them. I installed a few other things from previous MJOLNIR models also, if you want I can tell you along the way."

That would have been useful against the Storm, back on the Dawn. Though considering the close quarters he was in it wouldn't have done much good, either way, he had a new set of armor mods to use in the field.

The Chief ran off the ledge to use his thruster pack, and it propelled him at high speeds. Normal people would've missed their mark and just hit the wall, but the Chief wasn't normal, he was able to grab the ledge and vault up to the wall's partially flattened top. He looked around and saw the top of the Republic ship and made his way over there, hoping he could be of help.

* * *

-The Republic Ship; the Bridge-

* * *

Obi-Wan pushed the bridge doors open to get outside. They got lucky. The bridge was in bad shape, and some of the people were unconscious or up but injured. "Is everyone alright?"

Commander Cody had his helmet on luckily when they entered the portal, "Most of seem alright, sir." He looked around to see the same thing, but he couldn't say for the rest of the ship.

Barriss went to help her master up after a beam had fallen on her leg, "Master, are you alright?"

"I'm fine Barriss, right now focus on helping any of the wounded in the ship." Luminara limped up with Barriss' aid over towards the main view port of the bridge, from what they saw the ship, it was not looking good. The main hangar bay doors were rather disjointed and broken, many of the cannons were out of commission due to the Storm hitting them or relatively intact. Smoke and fire were coming from holes of the ship and signified the loss of atmosphere and destruction of those sections of the ship. "We were caught completely off guard, and yet we still manage to barely survive."

Rex went over to the ship comms and tried to get ahold of someone down in engineering, "Hello, is anyone down in engineering?" Luckily he got an answer.

"Rex, yeah I'm down here." Anakin had gone down to the engine room to see what the damage was.

"How are things general?"

"Not good, the engines are pretty much gone. The crash did a number on them. I have no idea how long it would take to even start on the repairs, we'd have maybe a month or so with what we have."

"Damn...alright, I'll let everyone else know."

* * *

-The Hangar Bay-

* * *

Ahsoka was down in the hangar bay, or what was left of it, alongside Padme doing their best to help out the injured and those that died. Several men were crushed by the fighters and pinned against the wall and ground, she used the the Force as best she could to try and move the wrecked fighters off the men with some others helping along to grab them, before they became completely crushed.

"Alright, I've got it...get them out from under there boys."

A few of the troopers moved in quickly to help the crushed out of the wreckage before Ahsoka couldn't hold it anymore. When the last man had been carried out, she let go of the destroyed fighter and let it slid up against the wall, she collapsed as she was short on energy and her mind went back that strange orange scanning beam, or whatever it was.

"Ahsoka, here let me help you, you need to get some water in your system, or you'll collapse." Padme walked over to Ahsoka to help her up over towards the makeshift med station they set up in the hangar bay, light from the outside came in through the the cracks of the doors being jammed and broken, and the rest of the hangar was doused in red lights showing that the emergency power had kicked in. Ahsoka grabbed a water canteen out from a supply crate and gulped down the drink in one breath, she breathed in hard and wiped away whatever excess water from her mouth, "I can't believe we got our butts handed to us so bad…"

Padme nodded in agreement, but…"Well, we never did think someone else had made it out here. On one hand, we made contact with a whole new species, but on the other we did find out who's been responsible for the ship disappearances for the last three years." But it was a very negative contact, they sounded almost like religious zealots ready to purge anything at a moment's notice. It made her shudder for a moment…

"Yeah, but still…did you see that glowing orange thingy going through the ship?" It felt as if someone or, something was practically looking at them.

Padme nodded she too felt whatever it was in the field that went through her and the other crew members, she couldn't describe it, but R2 had been helping her when Ahsoka brought up the conversation. R2 shuddered and beeped in fear.

"What is it R2?"

R2 began to go through a series of fearful beeps and tones, "You felt something getting inside you?"

R2 beeped in response. He shivered when it was mentioned, something or someone was drawing out data from his memory, but he could describe anything else, other than the fear he felt. Ahsoka patted R2 on the top for some comfort but then R2 started to receive some sort of contact. He did a bunch of beeps and boops to signify that he was excited. He told Ahsoka and Padme, "You found someone R2? Who?"

R2 went over to a hallway and rolled down all the way to an airlock and plugged himself into the system, or what was left of it. As he started to open the door it barely did anything, but large fingers started to grab the edges of the doors and push them out of the way. Ahsoka had her lightsabers, while Padme had her personal blast, just in case those Covenant beings came knocking. But what they found opening the airlock door was a rather large being that towered over them in green armor, and it had an orange visor over where the eyes would be.

Ahsoka gripped her lightsabers tightly, but she took a moment to notice that she had seen him before back in space…he was the survivor of the ship. "Wait a sec, I've seen you before…you're the Chief."

"Yes." He nodded simply to her statement.

"Hello, everyone! And I'm Cortana, don't worry I'm inside his suit." Ahsoka and Padme jumped a bit when they heard a second and far more feminine voice come from the large super soldier, they looked at Chief with a bit of awe and stupor. Such as how he was this damn big. He broke the silence asking a question of his own, "Where is General Kenobi? Did he survive the crash?"

* * *

-The Chief & Cortana-

* * *

The Chief had been trekking to the Republic ship for about half an hour, along the way he found a few Covenant Phantoms that survived, well the computers did at least…the Chief went past one where an Elite was saying something, Cortana wanted a closer look into it though, "Di..dact…" as it kept on looping every few seconds.

"What is that? Chief, see if that terminal is still active." The Chief walked over towards the old console that he saw from the large gaping hole in the Phantom's cockpit, he punched up the symbol where it was operating from and Cortana did her micro-analysis in her usual quick time. "The Covenant have been broadcasting that from an equidistant orbit every 30 minutes, for the last three years."

"They've been waiting outside the planet for three years?" The Chief knew that the Covenant could be stubborn in their own right, but this was a bit ridiculous even for him.

"Apparently they couldn't get in. They tried to have some of the humans from Andromeda try to open it up for them, but they were unsuccessful…how odd…" Odd indeed, if these were in fact humans like the Chief and everyone else back home, then the planet should've opened up to them.

He continued along to the HUD marker that Cortana had placed for him to the ship, while having to crawl through some more wreckage, it was getting annoying. He finally had made it to the ship, and from what he saw, it was in bad condition; it would probably never fly again without a major haul in a shipyard. Smoke and fire rose from holes in the ship and at least one of the top viewing decks was missing entirely, while the other looked intact save for part of the windows that had structures blown out. He wondered if the personnel on the bridge had survived, some of the cannons were hit hard by Covenant fighters when they went suicidal and dove into the ship, hoping to cripple their defensive power.

 _ **[End OST]**_

Cortana spoke and pointed out an entrance into the damaged ship on his HUD, "There's an airlock that you can pry open to get inside. There may be survivors aboard."

"Agreed."

The Chief holstered his Battle Rifle on his back's right side, with the Sniper on his left side, and walked over to the airlock opening, he placed his hands on the door to try and find an opening that he could use to pry open, but no such luck until Cortana spoke with some good news. "Well, it looks like someone is happy to see us."

"Who?"

"They have an AI onboard, R2-D2, is it's designation. And he's glad we survived." The Chief didn't really understand AI's all that well, so he chalked it up to them being able to communicate with one another at high speeds that even he couldn't begin to process.

"Chief, he's opening up the airlock for us to get into." He nodded as he saw the doors begin to hiss and open up, but they stopped short but of an inch, but it was just enough to get his fingers in and pry the door open with his augmented strength.

He got the door open and was greeted by two people and a machine from what he saw. The small blue domed machine with an eye piece on what he assumed was the center of it, along with several others like it, he guessed that this was R2-D2.

He saw the two women he stood in front of and took note of their appearance. The human woman wore a purple flight best over a beige flight suit and had her hair done up in a ponytail, and carried a small silver pistol. The other woman, or as he assumed was a woman, or rather girl, was orange skinned with white markings on her face that made it appear to be like war paint from the old 20th century days of Earth's warfare, but he noticed the lack of hair and that it was replaced with two horn like protrusions and tails that hung down past her shoulders. She held two cylinder object in her hands that had opened end to them, he guessed that they were energy swords of some type, going by the way she was wielding them.

He saw that she was looking at him with worry and suspicion in her eyes, he was about to speak up, but he stopped when he saw her eyes shoot up in realization, "Wait a sec, I've seen you before…you're the Chief."

"Yes." The Chief nodded in conformation of her deduction. He let Cortana do most of the talking anyways in situations like these.

"Hello everyone!" The women at the airlock jumped a bit at Cortana's voice seeing as he was the only person that they saw, "And I'm Cortana, don't worry, I'm inside his suit."

It seemed to relax them for a bit until the Chief spoke up, "Is General Kenobi still alive?"

"Yeah, he's probably still up in the bridge getting everyone out from there with Comander Cody." Ahsoka said sheathing her lightsabers.

"Where is the bridge?" Chief had a feeling that it was that large viewport on the top of the ship jutting out like a prime target.

"Up top, but the elevators are malfunctioning. We'd probably have to use the maintenance halls." Yup, just like he thought.

"No problem. Just get me into a console somewhere in the ship and I can get whatever's functioning up and running." Cortana voiced over the Chief's speakers.

"You can do that?" Ahsoka was a little surprised by the AI's statement.

"Easily, that is if anything can still run in this bucket. It's falling apart from what we saw outside." She said with a bit of sadness in her voice, she wanted to see how well this ship performed against UNSC and Covenant ships.

The four of them walked back through the hallways whilst farming the attention of some of the clones. Cortana chimed in a bit, "Looks like someone's got some major attention now."

The Chief just hummed in acknowledgement. He just ignored them since what they were saying didn't really matter, and neither were they things he had heard before.

"Who the heck is that?"

"He's huge!"

"What weapons are those, you think he's got?"

"Are those slugthrowers? Great a guy with slugthrowers for weapons, no wonder he called for help." Several of the clones began to murmur and chuckle a bit to themselves.

Fives had been going sector to sector of the ship helping out who he could. He saw the Chief and was in awe of the man, he on the other hand knew better, and swatted the clone on the head with that comment. "Hey, he managed to kill probably dozens of those new enemies with slugthrowers, and we got our asses handed to us. What does that tell you about him and _his_ slugthrowers? They perfected them." That got the clones to shut up with the mocks at the Chief and his weaponry.

Waxer and Boil had been trying to get into the emergency backup systems room, but with no such luck. The console was damaged and they had tried a few methods to crack it.

"Ah, dammit! Nothing's working!"

"Even that bypass didn't work."

"Hey guys, what's wrong with the door?"

The two clones turned to see Commander Tano along with Senator Amidala and probably _the_ biggest soldier they had ever seen. Their eyes were wide with astonishment if it was even possible to grow that big. They snapped out of their stupor for a bit to talk to the young Padawan.

"Eh, we've been trying to get to the backup power room, but the console's fried and the door's jammed shut, we'd have to get a few men down here to get the thing open now."

The Chief looked at the door and saw that it was shut tight, though it looked like he could pry it open if he could get how fingers into the opening.

He stepped forward where the clones got out of his way. The Chief decided to take a crack at it, and placed his hands on the door to get a grip, what happened next made the clones drop their jaws.

The Chief pulled the doors open with little to no problem, having them spark a bit in resistance against his augmented strength. He got them open all the way with some sparking here and there at the door's edges but they had access to the emergency backup systems now.

"Holy shit..."

"...ah, uhm, thanks big guy." Waxer turned to Boil, "Let's get to work."

The clones went inside and switched the lights on with a few of them sparking and going out already. The Chief strode in to look around, the room was reinforced and was compact, having consoles and monitors nailed to the floor and the walls, just in case something like this did happen.

"Chief, touch the console there." He placed his hand in what looked like a data port and let Cortana do her work on the ship. Her signature blue light flowed into the computer and was sent through multiple systems

"Wait, what did you just do?" Padmé asked, after watching the blue lights pulsate throughout the room. Cortana opted to answer instead, "I'm running a diagnostic scan of the ship and its systems. Though this thing won't be able to fly again, especially with the Covenant hunting us all down right now. We'd be shot down before we ever got up into the air...if we could get it in the air." That and she was simultaneously downloading what info she could get from the ships data banks. She was still very curious about these people, and she wanted to see how much they could do against the Covenant.

Ahsoka was downtrodden by the news. Now they had no way back home. "Well...that's fantastic...anything else?"

"For now no, but you may want to get up to the general and get a sitrep of everyone else that survived."

The Chief looked at Ahsoka seeing as she apparently had some military rank gong by how they called her Commander. "Where are the maintenance ways to the bridge?"

"They're this way." Ahsoka led the Chief through the maintenance hallways, whereas Padmé decided to help Waxer and Boil with the backup systems.

Ahsoka would glance at the Chief every now and then, she wonders how he was so large? How advanced was his people? The way he walked was like a proper military man, much like Rex and Cody. How long had he been a soldier? If anyone didn't know, he looked like a very large battle Droid.

They finally arrived at the Bridge with the door halfway open with a few clones siting down after getting patched up. Two of them immediately readied their weapons in case the Chief tried something, seeing as he was an unknown, but they were also terrified as he was huge and they had no idea what he was capable of, but Ahsoka spoke up to ease their tension.

"Woah, easy boys. He's on our side."

"...is, is he a Droid or something?"

"Nope, there's an actual guy in there."

"Well you learn something every day...um, the higher ups are just inside, sir."

"Thanks, trooper."

The Chief simply stayed silent until he was able to talk to the person or persons in charge, Cortana was still downloading and wiping the databases and she was still in his suit. A nice upgrade that she received back on Earth from returning from Halo and the finishing of Operation: FIRST STRIKE.

Ahsoka walked over to Obi-Wan and Commander Cody who were discussing their current status and planing what to do next, and she cleared her voice grabbing everyone's attention.

Luminara and Barriss were a rather intrigued by the Spartan, rather than being nervous unlike the clones.

"Master Obi-Wan, this is the Chief, he's the survivor from the distress call."

Obi-Wan had seen many things since he had become a Padawan under his master Qui-Gon, but coming a Knight and mentoring Anakin, and throughout the Clone Wars. But the Chief certainly was something else.

Cody looked at the Chief and saw that he was armed to the teeth. Their own armor paled in comparison to his, he looked like he could literally swat a rocket out of his way and keep on fighting.

"Hello, I'm General Kenobi. We communicated back outside the planet if I recall correctly. But I thought there were two of you..."

All of a sudden Cortana popped up in the bridge's holotable in her human avatar. "That would be me. I'm Cortana." She giggled a bit at the reactions that they were giving her, while the Chief just shook his head a bit.

She swore that he had smirked a bit under that helmet of his.

"Wait, you're an artificial intelligence?" Barriss was shocked. She knew that Droids and their own AI's had a small personality, namely R2 and 3PO, but Cortana had addressed herself with a more Human name, rather than a serial number, nor did she act like an AI that they were used to. This was very interesting to her, and the added Covenant and metallic world just made the crew all the more curious to the mystery of these people.

"I'm a completely sentient AI, or almost. Thought right now we have other problems..."

Obi-Wan nodded in agreement. They still had enemies out there. "Right, how exactly do we plan to get off world? You sound like your familiar with these situations."

"Well, I have good news, bad news, and really bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"

"Let's here the really bad news first."

"Ok, then. The Covenant have sent out hunter killer battalions to kill us all, and they currently have several ships in search patterns for us and anything that catches their attention. They've been finding survivors from their own wreckages seeing as some of the Covenant fared just as well as we did. And they've augmented themselves, so their soldiers are a much bigger threat than before in the war."

Some of the clones got stiff from hearing that. They were being hunted immediately after crashing down, and they didn't have the necessary numbers or firepower to fend off attackers, and they were vulnerable taking heavy losses since the ship had many crew members rocked and bounced around the hallways since the fight in space, and the harsh crash landing. Leaving several people either dead or with broken bones.

"The bad news, is that even if we did find a way off, we still have the gravity well to worry about. We'd get dragged right back down again, once we reached the opening to the surface."

So far things weren't looking good. They had a new unknown enemy hunting them, and a doorway that wasn't letting them go. Obi-Wan took it all in as he was thinking through the scenarios in his head.

The only ones that came to mind wasn't good.

"And the good news would be?"

"We..." Cortana gestured to her and the Chief, "...know the Covenant the best, and I've already hooked into their battlenet. We can split up and stay in contact with one another, while I send in false reports."

Obi-Wan as actually impressed by the last thing, "That'll keep us out of their eyes for a while, but we'll need something more concrete."

"We can monitor the Covenant's reports on the structures, since they tend to go crazy and rip everything out that isn't nailed to the floor and use it later on. A map room would be the best thing since it'll relay everything in the planet, and it'll show us where the gravity well is and where the Covenant are landing."

Obi-Wan nodded, by this time Anakin had walked into the bridge and was already wanting to know what was going down.

After detailing what the Covenant were capable of in the war, and what the Chief and Cortana had seen on the _Dawn_ , they thought it best if they had a small scouting party head out to find the map room, while the rest of the crew head into a local jungle and holdout there for a bit after Cortana mentioned a few structures of insignificance that the Covenant had reported into command.

It would provide them a place to fortify and dig into for the time being until they could find the map room, one part of the crew would stay in the structures, while two scouting parties would be split off to investigate the gravity well's location and fortifications.

Mea while another scouting party would join the Master Chief in locating the map room and finding the Covenant ships for future hijacking.

The survivors all loaded up what weapons and supplies they could take and began to mount up and move out. Anakin, Ahsoka had been assigned to head out with the Chief along with Captain Rex, the ARC troopers Fives & Echo, and a few other clones alongside them.

The Chief was currently waiting outside the Republic ship with Cortana doing calculations of the Covenants firepower, enhancements and newly designed vehicles and seeing how they did against the clones and their own bag of goodies, though the Chief was wondering what else Cortana had done to his armor suit, as she neglected to tell him about the newly built in Thruster Pack that gave him an edge.

"Cortana before we get into any more firefights, is there anything else you did to my armor?"

Cortana didn't register his voice for a bit, until she perked up a bit from her work, "Hmm? Oh, sorry, wasn't really paying attention there for a second. Other than the firmware, your HUD, your armor's plates, and the Thruster Pack, I also added in some old Armor Mods from the Mark V series. The Armor Lock mod, a Dropshield dispenser and Hologram projector. Your HUD now has the option to swap between what you're seeing now, but you'll also have Night Vision and Infrared Vision. The Energy Shield now has an upgraded battery and recharge time so it will be twice as better as before back on the Ark, and the armor plates have been modified to allow maximum coverage and mobility. Also, any other Armor Mod plugins that you come across will be able integrate with your suit with ease, and hopefully I can run some diagnostics on them to see if I can't make them permanent additions to your suit. That's all about I could do in the three years I had to myself."

To the Chief, these gave him one hell of an advantage against the Covenant, and it allowed him more options in battle than before whereas he had to rely on Equipment that only lasted so long, but turning the tide of the fight in his favor.

"That's quite a project you managed to make for yourself."

"I do take pride in my work."

The rest of the scout squad assigned to the Chief had arrived: Anakin, Ahsoka, Rex, Fives, Echo and seven other troopers loaded with their weapons and other equipment that they might need. Anakin stepped up to the Chief, "So what do we call you? You got a nickname?"

The Chief turned around to face Anakin, "Just call me Chief. Anything else, doesn't have as nice of ring to it."

Anakin chuckled a bit, "Well, alright." He turned and introduced the rest of their group, "You've already met Snips here..." He nodded over to Ahsoka who rolled her eyes at the old nickname her master held for her, "...next here is Captain Rex, ARC Troopers Fives & Echo..." The Chief looked towards the troopers in armor with shoulder pauldrons extra gear & weapons.

"Sir!" The high ranking troopers said to the Chief.

"And Troopers Spectre, Torian, Saber, Blade, Canderous, and Jaster."

Each of the troopers, ID'd themselves, "Sir!" Their armor was plain white, but with blue markings on their armor signifying their group. The 501st battalion under General Skywalker's command.

The Chief looked at each of them and nodded, "Cortana. Let them know what we'll be up against." Cortana used the Hologram projector mod to show off the various Covenant forces.

"Alright boys, kiddo..." She took a shot out poking fun at Ahsoka, who responded in kind, "Whatever Sparky." Just because she had grown up since she started in the war, that didn't mean she could still be a kid every now and then.

Cortana chuckled a bit, she was beginning to like her already. "The UNSC has been at war with the Covenant for the last thirty years, and we barely won against them. They're a collective of multiple alien races that each play specific roles in the military and it's a system that they've abided by for thousands of years, and it's highly effective."

She brought up the first projection of one of the species that stood at Ahsoka's height, it had some sort of tank on its back, and a tube going straight into its nose, with a helmet protecting their heads and faces entirely with a green visor where the eyes were at. "This is an Unngoy, the Grunt as we call it. While they're cowardly and the lowest in the Covenant military, in groups they can very deadly, as they overwhelm careless soldiers. So don't take them lightly, now their augmentations have made them more aggressive, their bodies are larger with plates on their arms and legs, giving them some natural protection, more muscle mass, their eyesight has also been enhanced giving them better accuracy with weapons, and they don't flee as much as they used to back then due to these enhancements."

Blade and Saber didn't really take her info with much seriousness. "Heh, they don't seem so tough if they run away as much as you say."

"Sure, just put a few rounds in their heads, and they'll go running around with their panties all wet." Blade laughed at Sabers little joke, but the others didn't.

Especially the Chief, he looked over at the men and gave them a thousand-yard stare that grabbed their attention, and shut them up very quickly, and he spoke out loud. "I've seen a lot of soldiers like yourselves take the Grunts with no seriousness, and it cost them their lives. Don't make the same mistake as they did."

The jokers nodded yes, while Anakin gave them a disapproving look. "All of you. Take this seriously. If you don't, then you're going to find yourselves and your squad mates in real trouble."

Rex spoke up next, "And in case you boys haven't been keeping up on current events, we just got our asses handed to us on a silver platter. Whether we were caught off guard or not, is irrelevant. We're trained for these things, and look what happened."

"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir. Won't happen again."

Rex nodded in acceptance, while Anakin motioned for their briefing to continue. The next projection was that of a pair of creatures that stood a little above Anakin' height, and both held bird and reptilian qualities. Their teeth and claws made them think twice about getting swiped at by them, "These are Kig-Yar, the Jackals and the Skirmishers. But the latter is a subspecies, that tends to be far more aggressive than their former relatives, who chose defense and long range combat. They're used as scouts and assassins in the Covenant, and their new augmentations have them more aggressive, their teeth and claws sharp enough to tear into metal, enhanced hearing and muscle mass giving them added strength and couple that with their superior eyesight, they can spot enemies very easily."

Fives had surmised their way of fighting, "So they basically like to play dirty and make fights unfair in situations, and pop your head off with sniper."

"Exactly, the Jackals have openings in their shield gauntlets that allow them a way for their weapons to fire, but it works both ways. Hit them in that spot, then you've got an opening for a few seconds to their main vital spots. The Skirmishers on the other hand, tend to leap around, make you waste rounds and they land right on top of you to slash your face up."

She rolled out a vid from the Fall of Reach in New Alexandria where the Covenant had corned a group of Marines pinned down at an elevator. The clones watched as the soldiers were overwhelmed by their superior numbers and firepower, Anakin closed his eyes in sadness at the lives lost, with Echo clenching his fist a bit.

"So, lesson learned with them." The next hologram shows a sight that was all to familiar to the Republic soldiers, "These are Yanme'e, the Drones. I read up on your fight with the Geonosians so they don't fight all that differently, save for one or two things. They're a lot more aggressive than the Geo's are, they never flee from battle and they're always deployed in swarms of 20-30 in it. They go with moving constantly around while firing a few rounds here and there, though some of their swarm leaders have been known to use personal energy shields and heavier weaponry. But I have no idea what their augmentations are, so be prepared for anything."

As Cortana was briefing them on the Covenant, Ahsoka was having questions pop into her head of the voices she heard in her vision. She already deduced that one of them was the leader of the Covenant, and that the one that shot lightning at her was a Sith lord, but the others were a mystery to her. The last one especially...it scared her to the core...she shivered a bit catching the Chief's attention.

"Are you alright?"

"Hmm? Y-yeah, I'm alright." She stopped shivering and stood back at attention, letting Cortana continue, though Anakin was still worried about her state of mind and was going to ask what exactly she saw. Maybe the Chief could shed some light on what it was.

Now Cortana was getting to the major threats of their ground troops, "Now I know that I've been giving you guys the cannon fodder/minor threats, but these next three are the major soldiers you need to worry about."

Everyone paid rapt attention to the briefing, the first hologram that showed was that of massive creature that stood well above that of the Chief.

The one thought among the soldiers: It was fucking huge.

Instead of a traditional mouth that they all were accustomed to seeing from the species of their galaxy, this one had four mandibles that were set apart from one another and lined with sharp teeth, and menacing reptilian eyes. "These are Sangheili, the Elites. The main backbone of the Covenant's military force. Their society is that of a warrior honor bound code, with strict adherence to the ways, and while they were our allies in the end of the war, three years can change a lot of things, and we currently don't even know if they still are. But right now, they're our enemy and they will kill you without mercy. Just a single Elite is able to take out several fireteams of Marines before going down, they use every weapon available to them, even from a downed enemy, and lately it looks like they've been distributing Energy Swords out more to the lower ranks in their system, so close quarters combat with them is a no-no."

She then turned to Anakin and Ahsoka, "Except for maybe you two, their swords are made up of the same stuff as your own, and their reach is about four to five feet long. They've trained extensively with them for decades, and they sometimes wield two of them, along with Energy Daggers that come from their wrists."

Cortana showed off the weapons in their hands and their fighting style, along with the fight that the Chief had against the Officer Elite that challenged him years ago in Operation: WARM BLANKET.

Anakin watched and compared it to that of several combinations of the lightsaber forms, leaving no room for error. They didn't make any foolish movements, nor did they make any openings for the enemy, and they were both fast and precise. "Fighting them is going to be difficult. Though I doubt we'll even get that close to them with all the others shooting at us...guess we'll have to get used to using blasters with our lightsabers." He said that last part more to himself and Ahsoka as he looked to her, making sure she got the message.

"So, try to avoid getting in a sword fight with the Squid Heads, while also using a blaster with a lightsaber...could be interesting." Learning a new way of fighting could be fun after all.

Rex spoke up, "So, what are their enhancements?"

"They've had increased muscle mass and strength giving even the Chief a hard time, their speed, eyesight and hearing have also been enhanced making them more alert and aware of what's around them, so ambushing will be a luxury that we may or may not have."

Spectre wasn't sure taking these guys on was smart, "They were already big enough of a threat before, but now they sound just unbeatable."

Torian jabbed his elbow a bit, "Hey, what's with that attitude, huh? I mean come one, he made it off just fine..." Gesturing to the Chief, "...and besides, he knows them the best. And if they decided to have close encounter, then we still have General Skywalker and Commander Tano to take them on. And we can always hang back and take head shots to them."

"Yeah, true..." Torian still didn't sound so sure about it, while some of the minor units weren't too much to lose sleep over, these big boys were pretty damn intimidating.

Anakin on the other hand, was putting on a strong face, he himself was a little afraid of the Elites. But he couldn't show it, nor could he say it aloud, he needed to stay strong for the men. He always carried himself with confidence in the battlefield and it gave the troops the moral they needed to carry on and fight hard. Having to abandon them back on Umbara and after hearing how the traitor Krell led them, well...the troops had a poor performance just in due to the suicidal methods of the rogue Jedi, but also from their low morale.

The next form proved to be just as big, of not slightly bigger than the Elite, and equally scary.

"These are Jiralhanae, aka Brutes, and they've earned that nickname for being just that. While they use the Covenant's main energy based weaponry, they also use their own weapons that they've made with their own hands. They usually put massive blades on them to make them effective melee bludgeons and outright kill people in one blow."

Echo was a bit off put, so far these guys gave him a bad feeling already, and just to confirm his gut, "Sooo...what enhancements do they have...?"

"So far their bone and muscle density have been increased and the go into rages much faster. It took an entire clip from a MA5C Assault Rifle aimed at its head to bring it down. Thirty-two rounds and it barely brought him down to death." Cortana played the recording from the _Dawn_ on the observation deck, and it really was an imposing scene. The Brutes were sponges that took major punishment, and they dealt it out in kind.

Cortana rolled out another vid, and warned the boys not to get near them, or they'd have their head bashed open and eaten on the spot.

Anakin clenched his fist in anger at what they had done to the Marines. Rex narrowed his eyes, and made a note to take at least one of their weapons to showcase that he killed one, as it would be a morale booster for the soldiers. The clones looked away in disgust, and a bit of fear...Ahsoka on the other hand, she tasted bile at the back of her throat and had to put her hand to her mouth to keep it down.

Anakin asked a question that was making wonder why they did this to their enemies, "Is this a common occurrence? Or something else...?" There was a bit both fear and anger in his voice that no else noticed but the Chief.

He understood, he had felt anger in him back on _Unyielding Hierophant_ when Grace had been ambushed and her body made a trap by the Brutes to get him and William. The two of them paid the enemy back in kind...

"Terror tactics, spreading fear, reputation, simply because they can, and because they get hungry in the heat of firefights. It's in their nature."

"...so what's last one on the list?"

Cortana showed the last of the Covenant. It stood over everyone else, at a whopping twelve feet tall, with armor and weaponry that made them feel insignificant. "This is a Mgalekgolo. We call them Hunters, and they're always in pairs so make no mistake boys, where there's one, there's always another. Their armor is completely impenetrable with their shields made of an unknown alloy, and they swing it when people get too close, and they have massive Fuel Rod Cannons that they use to deadly effect taking out armored tanks and grabbing people with them since they can function as an arm."

"S-so these things are basically walking tanks. Well h-how the hell do we take them down?" Jaster added in his two cents to the debriefing.

Cortana spun the hologram around and highlighted part of the back of the gargantuan creature. "Their back can be exposed when pieces of the armor are blown off from massive firepower. More than likely those pieces are held by smaller tendrils in order to give them maximum mobility and protection. Usually heavy explosives and weaponry do the trick, but if those aren't around then we need to get creative."

Everyone just nodded their heads, they knew soon that they would be in for the fight of their lives.

* * *

-Serrano; Count Dooku's Manor-

* * *

Dooku watched the battle above the newly discovered 'metal world' against both the Republic and his own forces.

This was not in the grand scheme of things. Who or whatever this new faction was, they could practically destroy everything he and his master had been working for, for over a decade and it could fall to ruin in a matter of months. Days even!

"This is not good." Dooku turned to Grievous and the hologram that showed Fett currently on another job that he had been contacted with, "General, how exactly did this new enemy come to attack you specifically?"

The cybernetic general spoke through the voice box that he had; it became damaged a bit when the ship was attacked by the unknowns and his face went straight into a console, "As we began to open fire on the Republic vessel making its way to the distress beacon, several hundreds of new vessels began to appear through black holes that appeared from nowhere. I suspect their way of light speed is used differently from our own, and it gives them a tactical and strategic advantage over our own. As you can see they don't operate like ours and the technology is something that we have yet to encounter." Grievous finished explaining.

Dooku turned to Fett who had something interesting input towards the ships. "I actually tried to get a scan of what exactly they came out of, and the energy signature bears similar to dark matter, and the way they moved was through a low pull-yield like that of a small black hole." Now that was interesting, many scientists in the galaxy, and even Darth Plagueis the Wise explored the potential of the usage of Dark Matter and Black Holes in space travel and weaponry, but all of them, even the Sith Lord of his master had deemed it all but impossible as the science behind it all was too dangerous and but a theory at that. But from what his best general and his best bounty hunter told him, these people had developed and quite possibly perfected it's usage and design of space travel and military potential. "This could prove to be an interesting turn of events for us all. We don't have fleets to spare for the time being to test these people, but sending a probe droid for analysis and possibly capturing something of interest could be of use to us."

Dooku turned to Grievous, "Now for the time being, we need to push forth on Mygeeto. Head there and reinforce our presence on the planet and take the capital." He turned to Jango, "Inform me once you are finished with this job. Once the Probe Droid is done, I want you to pick it up and take it to a research facility on Bespin, we need to know what this possible new enemy is capable of." And with that, both men left the Count under their orders. Soon a Probe Droid was prepared outside at the shipyards where an automated programming was made to bring it to the edge of the massive debris field that surrounded the dark system, launch the probe and self-destruct to avoid possible detection.

* * *

-Unknown Forerunner Planet; Scouting Party-

* * *

The trek back through the _Dawn_ 's wreckage to the crevice point wasn't too long, since maneuvering the small parts of debris with the Force and the Chief's own augmented strength sped the process up, they arrived at the same place the Chief and Cortana crashed into. Cortana threw up the marker where the crevice was located at, "There should be a crevice that we can use to get through the rocks, right over…here."

The marker appeared on the Chief's HUD letting him take the lead, "Over here." The others were currently looking at the remnants of the _Dawn_ and a downed Covenant dropship of some new design. Jaster and Saber were currently looking at the latter for a bit.

"Kinda reminds of Kamino huh?"

"Eh, a little it's not as purple as home, but yeah. I guess so."

Anakin looked back to grab their attention, "Hey men, this way." Echo, as usual lived up to his nickname, "Come on boys. You wanna get left behind? Be my guest."

"Right, sorry sir. Just noticing the architecture of the Covies was like the Kaminoans." Saber and Jaster had a bet going as to who, other than the Chief would get the first Covie kill later on in the first firefight. They made it to the crevice where it led down through the rocks and debris, soon they began to see green patches of grass and moss covering the way.

Cortana had been monitoring the Covenant battlenet for some time, but there was one thing that had been broadcasting ever since they crashed, "Hey everyone, listen to this. It's a Covenant broadcast that's been playing ever since we crashed inside the planet 'Non-believers and heretics walk the sacred ground. Purge the Demon and the Jedi filth, so that they do not foul the air of Paradise. The time has come to enter the Great Light. The Promethean awakening is nigh...our reward is at hand. All will be cleansed of the disease called Humanity and its allies will burn in a sea of holy fire.' _._ "

"Sounds like the Covenant are looking for something here." Rex pointed out

Cortana just rolled her eyes, "It's the Covenant. They're always looking for something."

Anakin wasn't exactly thrilled by the way the talked, "They said 'Jedi Filth', how exactly would they've known about us?" Being stuck in an outer part of the galaxy where almost no contact was made, didn't keep one up on current events.

Cortana had done some homework on this, "Well they've apparently been waiting outside the planet for three years, and having tried to get in using humans from your galaxy, they failed several times. From what some of the records say, any ship that's tried to explore this deep in Andromeda was either captured and dismantled or destroyed, and those that were captured more than likely the ships log's history and database extracted from their computers, something the covenant are more than willing to exploit. And the crew mates? Well, just hope some of them had a quick death…the Covenant aren't known for taking prisoners." She saw what occurred to the prisoners back on the _Truth & Reconciliation_ and on _High Charity_ some of them had large gashes on their faces and bodies, others had boils and sores, missing limbs, those that survived ended up having to be discharged due to their fragile psychological condition.

Some things are never meant to be seen or heard….

Rex turned towards the Chief with his own question, "Do they rip up anything not nailed down to the floor?"

"They do it with both." The group continued down the cavern riddled with debris with their own stories going back and forth with the Clones, though the Chief kept to himself mostly since he was basically back on his own somewhat with just Cortana, much like when they were on the first Halo, though his own thoughts were interrupted by a transmission signal on his HUD. "What is that?"

 _ **[Halo 4 OST: Requiem -Start-]**_

Cortana immediately started to analyze it and see who was exactly broadcasting it, "I'm picking a faint transmission on the high-band."

"Covenant?"

"I don't think so…the pattern's different. I'll try to triangulate its position."

Chief turned towards Rex, "Did you launch a distress beacon when you were pulled into the planet?" The Clone captain shook his head, "No, we had no idea what was waiting for us. We took some precautions but we didn't expect to find a massive hostile force. Though protocol with lost contact ships is to wait at least three rotations from Coruscant."

"How long is that?"

"About 72 hours, unfortunately. And given how they got the jump on us in orbit, I'm not too keen on many of us making off this planet alive." He wasn't going to lie about the odds, he himself was afraid of this new enemy.

As they came to an opening with a blinding light, burning their eyes, or at least Anakin's and Ahsoka's, Chief was on point to get a view. He exits crevice and emerges onto a cliff edge. Sprawling Forerunner structures cover the entirety of the abyss below, merging seamlessly with the surrounding mountains. In defiance of gravity, great spires reaching into the clouds hover serenely above the complex; an awe-inspiring demonstration of the Forerunners' technological mastery.

Cortana wanted to poke a bit of fun at the newcomers to Forerunner architect, "Take a picture boy's, this is a view that beats all."

Everyone save for the Chief were awestruck at the view, it was unlike anything they had ever seen before in their lives. The clones took their helmets and had to rub them to actually take in the beauty of the valley and the spires floating around assembling and disassembling, and Ahsoka even dropped her Lightsaber, Anakin while was equally shocked, "And here I thought Mortis was the only place that looked so…majestic…but this place, it's amazing…" Something he didn't say very often about anything, not only that, with no Force presence in the planet, it added more wonder and mystery to the species that made this fortress in the stars.

"That's some view."

"Have any of you guys smelt air that was this fresh?"

"Well I'll say this; they definitely give Naboo a run for its money. Shame Coruscant doesn't have any green places on the planet, would make things a lot livelier with families."

Chief looked towards the large debris and noted that a few Warthog's were surprisingly still intact, "There's our transportation." He walked over towards the larger piece with two of the Warthogs still held in place by the bindings that held a standard M12 LRV with the Chaingun hooked up, and another with the Transporter mod installed instead, perfect for their recon. Anakin looked away from the view and saw the vehicles he mentioned. Wheeled ones that he only saw nowadays on the Turbo Tanks, small around two to three times the size of Speeder Bikes, and one had a gun as large as their legs, an overall green and faded paintjob, with a grey interior and leather seats that you'd find in high class architectural designs. "So, what are these?"

"M12 Light Reconnaissance Vehicles's, the standard rear mounted triple-barreled Chaingun. It fires up to 550 armor piercing rounds per minute. Used for recon into enemy territory and has Anti-personnel and Anti-air capabilities." Anakin looked towards the other one next to it, "And that one? It looks more like it's meant for troop transport instead of actual combat." The Chief knew better than to underestimate one them, as when several Marines were loaded up with heavy weaponry it was a force to be reckoned with. "The M831, made primarily for troop transportation into combat zone, but can be used in actual combat with enough men that can use firepower to turn the tide of a firefight. It should help with our numbers." The Chief found the latch that let them both down to the ground, "Stand back."

The Warthogs dropped with a large thunk, luckily the tires weren't burnt out from the reentry otherwise they'd have to take the time to change them out for others that were on the wrecked vehicles, taking away time they didn't have. Anakin, turned back to the others who were _still_ looking out to the valley, "Hey, get your heads in the game. We got transports and we need to find the map room, ready up!"

"Yes, Sir!"

It snapped the Clones and Ahsoka to their mission, and with what was to come, they needed everything they'd experience to survive the next 24 hours…

* * *

 _ **Wow, massive writer's block on this chapter. I apologize for my crappy writing on this chapter and hopefully I'll get better with it as this is new territory for me, so bear with me please. Now I split this chapter into two parts because I wanted to condense each "Chapter" from the game into a single chapter on here, but it simply proved to be too much and I cut it off halfway. When I finish the other half, I may end up putting it in this one to exnted it, or keep it as a seperate chapter all together.  
**_

 _ **The next part will have the recon group having their first deadly encounter with the new Covenant Storm and seeing Sentinels. Also, just a heads up, the captain of the Infinity isn't Del Rio, nor will it be Lasky, he's still a Commander at this time but rather someone else is, and I hope you guys enjoy their return since they died back in the Halo Trilogy unfortunately and I wanted to put them into the Reclaimer Saga, as I liked them as a character and they would get along well with the Republic on Requiem I thought, just like they got along with the Arbiter.**_

 _ **Also, Halo 5 has become bullshit as of late with the whole Month of Mythic packs that have ruined Warzone and Warzone Assault…Prophet's Banes, Tartarus's Gavels, SPNKr Prime's and now fucking Nornfang's everywhere in them…seriously 343, Halo is not your whore, nor should it become a mandatory pay-to-play game…anyways, if you guys are interested in paying with me on Xbox Live in**_ **Master Chief Collection** _ **,**_ **Reach** _ **and**_ **Halo 5** _ **, and talking about Halo, whether it be good or bad, hit me up. Gamertag is**_ **Kry Daddy 117** _ **.**_

 _ **Once again, I apologize for the massive gap in the update, college, other stories, life and other stories get in my way, so please continue to read, review, favorite and follow. Until next time :) !**_


	4. Sorry Everyone, and Author's Note

_**Hello, everyone. It saddens me to say this, but after much thought and deliberation on this story series that would've continued after this one, I have decided to put**_ **Star Wars: Requiem** _ **on permeant hiatus.**_

 _ **At first when I started this story, I wanted to create something awesome on this site, something that everyone would come back to read several times over, but the more I kept thinking about it, the more the idea grew, and expanded, the more overwhelming it became, and thus I decided to go with a series that would be a bit more simple, and smaller; a Halo-Gears of War crossover series, that I started during the events of**_ **Halo: Reach** _ **, and to continue onwards through from**_ **Halo: Combat Evolved** _ **to**_ **Halo 4** _ **and**_ **Gears of War 4.**

 _ **I know many of you guys have been following and favoriting this story, and hoping for the next chapter to be released, but sadly that day may never come. I realized that this series would go through not just**_ **Halo 4** _ **, but also**_ **Halo 4: Spartan Ops** _ **,**_ **Halo: Escalation** _ **,**_ **Halo: Hunt the Truth** _ **, a rewrite of**_ **Halo 5: Guardians** _ **(the game's story sucked ass, let's face it, they fucked up badly with Skynet-tana),**_ **Halo Wars 2** _ **, more than likely a possible rewrite of**_ **Halo 6** _ **,**_ **Star Wars: The Clone Wars** _ **, and a rewrite of**_ **Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith** _ **.**_

 _ **Quite a lot that would take someone with massive amounts of time on their hands, or a team of writers dedicated to this story. Sadly, I have found neither solution, and thus I have been forced to give the Halo-Star Wars series up.**_

 _ **Again, I am sorry to everyone, and I thank you guys for following and favoriting the story when I was writing it. I know, it didn't have a long lifespan, but thank you regardless.**_

 _ **Anyways, I have started a Halo-Gears of War series starting in**_ **Halo: Reach** _ **, titled**_ **"Will There Ever Be a Brighter Future?"** _ **, and stars several of the Gears we know and love flung into the Human-Covenant War who now have new participants in the war now.**_

 _ **I also have a YouTube channel and an Xbox Club both called**_ **The League of Halo Nerds** _ **, if you guys are interested, drop by like and subscribe to my channel and vids of the Halo campaign playthroughs, and join up in the club if you can.**_

 _ **My gamertag is**_ **Kry Daddy 117** _ **if anyone wants to hit me up for some Halo playtime, then just add me as a friend online.**_

 _ **If anyone is or was interested in possibly continuing this series, contact me through PM on here, and I can dig up my notes on it and you can continue it onwards from there.**_

 _ **Goodbye everyone, and I'll see you guys star side :)**_


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